![]() Tanks used crawler tracks to move themselves through trenches and barbed wire. The British invented an armored car called a tank. Soldiers got gas masks for protection against them. Both sides then tried other chemical weapons. In April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans used a poison gas called chlorine against Allied troops. The French and the Germans fought another long battle near the French town of Verdun in 1916.īoth sides tried new ways to break through trench defenses. They gained only about 5 miles (8 kilometers) of ground. More than 600,000 soldiers on each side were killed, wounded, or captured. The First Battle of the Somme took place near the Somme River in France from July to November. Soldiers fought two of the war’s worst battles on the Western Front in 1916. Both sides used rapid-firing machine guns against anyone who tried to get across the no-man’s land. A “no-man’s land” covered with barbed wire lay between the trenches. The soldiers stayed in these trenches for protection. The trenches stretched from the coast of Belgium to the border of Switzerland. Each side dug long trenches into the ground. The armies on the Western Front then began four years of trench warfare. But in September 1914 the Allies forced back the Germans at the First Battle of the Marne, near the Marne River in France. The Germans had hoped for an easy victory on the Western Front. Italy did not go to war at first.īattlefields west of Germany were called the Western Front. The Triple Alliance became the Central Powers, and the Triple Entente became the Allies. Within a few weeks most of the countries of Europe were at war. Their group was called the Triple Entente. Russia’s friends were France and the United Kingdom (Great Britain). Serbia was a small country, but Russia protected it. Their group was called the Triple Alliance. Austria-Hungary’s friends were Germany and Italy. Both countries asked for help from their friends. On July 28 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Austria-Hungary accused Serbia of planning the crime. On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb shot and killed the Austro-Hungarian emperor’s nephew, Archduke Francis Ferdinand. They wanted Serbs living in Bosnia to break free of Austro-Hungarian control. ![]() Serbian patriots wanted all Serbs to unite. For many years, Austria-Hungary and its neighbor Serbia had been unfriendly. Sarajevo was the capital of Bosnia, a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. An armistice became effective on 11 November 1918 and all surviving German submarines were surrendered.A murder in the city of Sarajevo led to the war. Nevertheless, with the introduction of escorted convoys, shipping losses declined and in the end the German strategy failed to destroy sufficient Allied shipping. On 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo.Unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was initially very successful, sinking a major part of Britain-bound shipping. During the First World War, the SM U-1 was used for training. At the start of World War I, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction. It was commissioned by the Imperial German Navy on 14 December 1906. The SM U-1 was a completely redesigned Karp-class submarine and only one was built. ![]() In 1903, Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel completed Germany's first fully functional submarine, Forelle, which was sold to Russia during the Russo-Japanese War in April 1904. The vessel was designed in 1850 by the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer and built by Schweffel and Howaldt in Kiel.This was followed in 1890 by WW1 and WW2, built to a Nordenfelt design. The first submarine built in Germany was the three-man Brandtaucher, which sank to the bottom of Kiel harbor during its first test dive.
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