Supreme Army Command (OHL) When Germany mobilized for the war, the chief of the Prussian Army General Staff was named chief of the General Staff of the entire Armed Forces. According to law, of course, the Kaiser was commander in chief of the military. However, the chief of the General Staff actually led military operations. The department established for this purpose was the Supreme Army Command, which was placed under the control of the Supreme Headquarters. Early in the war the Supreme Army Comma…

Entente Cordiale Cordial understanding. Agreement of April 8, 1904, between Great Britain and France, settling a number of colonial differences. The Entente cordiale represented the culmination of the policy of French Foreign Minister Delcassé. He saw an understanding with Great Britain as the best means to make France secure against the German Reich. For such an understanding to come about, the antagonism between France and Britain outside Europe had to be overcome. The confrontation at Fashoda in the Sudan in 1898 …

National Socialism The first industrialized mass war had considerable effects on political and social relationships, and on the mentality of people. Italian Fascism and German National Socialism owe their particular characteristics and their legitimization to the First World War, described by Eric J. Hobsbawm as a “machine for brutalizing the world.” By his own testimony, Hitler himself was a “son of the war.” In repeated references to the war in Mein Kampf and in numerous statements and documented conversations ( Hitler’s Table Talks), Hitler returned time and again to his p…

Barthel, Christopher - The Cultivation of Deutschtum in Occupied Lithuania during the First World War ISFWWS-Keywords: Russian Front | Germany | Culture | Literature | Russia | Politics World War I and Propaganda Troy R.E. Paddock , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004264571 DOI: 10.1163/9789004264571_012 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Barthel, Christopher

kuźma-Markowska, Sylwia - Soldiers, Members of Parliament, Social Activists: The Polish Women’s Movement after World War I Keywords: civic organisations | commemoration | Ochotnicza Legia Kobiet (OLK) | Polish women | women's suffrage | World War I ISFWWS-Keywords: Poland | Women and War | Politics | Home fronts | Soldiers and Combat | Legacy | Russia | Politics | Society | Masculinity Abstract: At the beginning of the twentieth century, Polish women living in all three partitions not only lacked political rights but were also denied freedom of …

Goremykin, Ivan Legginovitch (August 11, 1839, Novgorod – December 24, 1917, Caucasus [murdered]), Russian politician. Goremykin was descended from a noble family of the Novgorod Gouvernement. A jurist, he was minister of the interior from 1895–1899. After 1899, he was a member of the Imperial Council. From May to July 1906, then again from January 1914 to January 1916, he served as prime minister. He is remembered as a politically weak figure, a typical reactionary, and especially as the marionett…

Prittwitz und Gaffron, Maximilian von (November 27, 1848, Bernstadt – March 29, 1917, Berlin), German general. Prittwitz came from an old military family, and in peacetime had a rapid and brilliant career. Yet even before the war, doubts were expressed about the military capacity of the “thick soldier” (his nickname). He was criticized for his rough manners and his excessive nervousness. Therefore as commander of the XIVth Infantry Corps in Metz, capable chiefs of staff were chosen to support him. Wh…

Gas Warfare With the large-scale use of poisonous chlorine gas at Ypres on April 22, 1915, the Germans opened a new chapter in the history of modern warfare. It marked the birth of a new “weapon of mass destruction,” which has had a profound impact on war and peace in the twentieth century and beyond. The use of poison gas became one of the hallmark phenomena of the First World War because it changed the image of the soldier and his “chivalrous struggle” much more radically than any other contemporary weapons development. The question of guilt – which side violated the Hague Convention…

Christmas Memorandum of 1915 Supposedly, a situation report Falkenhayn gave in a memorandum conveyed to the Kaiser some time around Christmas. The document in question comes down to us only through Falkenhayn’s own memoirs, Die Oberste Heeresleitung 1914–1916 in ihren wichtigsten Entschließungen (The Supreme Army Command 1914–1916 in Its Most Critical Decisions, 1920). For this reason its authenticity is doubtful. The Christmas Memorandum, concerning strategic plans for 1916, includes several fundamental declarations: Britain was the primary enemy. Britain…

Liddington, Jill - Britain in the Balkans: The Response of the Scottish Women’s Hospital Units Keywords: Balkans | Scottish Women's Hospitals (SWH) | Serbia ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Women and War | Medicine | The Balkans and Eastern Europe | Russia | The United States of America | Legacy | Politics Abstract: This chapter assesses the significance of the contribution of one selected Scottish Women's Hospitals (SWH) relief initiative during aftermath of war, that of the American Unit. It has been selected because of its close rel…

Griffante, Andrea - We and Homeland: German Occupation, Lithuanian Discourse, and War Experience in Ober Ost ISFWWS-Keywords: Russian Front | Violence against civilians | Germany | Home fronts | Russia | Religion Other Fronts, Other Wars? Joachim Bürgschwentner, Matthias Egger and Gunda Barth-Scalmani , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004279513 DOI: 10.1163/9789004279513_012 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Griffante, Andrea

Conscription A state’s compulsory enlistment of its citizens for military service. Conscription in the modern sense arose during the French Revolution. The new state, founded on the will of the people, demanded military service from its citizens. This enabled the state to expand its armed forces enormously, and to intensify its military activities accordingly. European monarchies too had to resort to this means of raising an army, if they wished to assert themselves militarily against France. Once Napoleon…

Mobilization The conversion of a nation’s military forces to a state of war, callled specifically “military mobilization,” and the adaptation of its government and industry to the demands of the war, known as “military mobilization.” Military mobilization for the World War had been planned in detail during peacetime. The preplanned procedures were intended to outfit military units with personnel, uniforms and equipment so as to bring them swiftly up to war strength. When the war began, frontier p…

Carol I, King of Romania (April 20, 1839, Sigmaringen – October 10, 1914, Peleş Castle near Sinaia), born Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrin of Hohenzollern, Prince of Romania (1866–1881), from 1881 King of Romania. After Alexandru Cuza, the first ruler of the Romanian state created from the united principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, was deposed in April 1866, the Romanian Parliament elected Carol, a member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, as the new head of state. Despite the initial skepticism of Austria in particul…

Polivanov, Alexei Andreyevich (March 16, 1855, [unknown] – September 25, 1920, Riga), Russian general (minister of war). Polivanov was a graduate of the Nikolaevsky Engineering Academy (1880) and the General Staff Academy (1888). Between 1899 and 1904 he was active on the General Staff, where he was editor in chief of the journal Voenny Sbornik (War Digest). Chief of the Army Headquarters Staff in 1905/1906, and deputy war minister between 1906 and 1912, Polivanov was close to the bourgeois parties in the Imperial Duma during these years. This even…

Viviani, René (August 11, 1863, Sidi-bel-Abbès, Algeria – September 7, 1925, Le Plessis-Robinson [Département Hauts-de-Seine]), French politician who became prime minister. A lawyer and journalist of Italian heritage, Viviani began his political career as an “independent socialist.” He was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1893. Viviani was a confirmed reformist. He distanced himself from the socialist parties because they had refused to work together with the “bourgeois” governments sin…

Potiorek, Oskar (November 11, 1853, Bleiburg [Carinthia] – December 17, 1933, Klagenfurt), Austrian general. Potiorek had a brilliant career in the General Staff. From 1892 he was head of the Operations Bureau, and in 1902 he was officially appointed deputy head of the General Staff. It was the greatest disappointment for him when in 1906 not he, but Conrad von Hötzendorf, became the new chief of the Austrian Imperial General Staff. Despite this Potiorek was recognized as having great talent, and …

Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count Ulrich von (May 29, 1869, Schleswig – September, 8, 1928, Berlin), German diplomat. The first foreign minister of the Weimar Republic was descended from the ancient nobility of Holstein. After obtaining his doctorate in law Brockdorff-Rantzau chose to pursue a diplomatic career which took him from Brussels via Saint Petersburg to Vienna, where in 1901 he became embassy secretary, and the influential German ambassador Count Carl von Wedel was his mentor. It was also thanks t…

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914. The real decision to take this step was not made by the cabinet, but by an inner circle of Young Turk politicians on October 25. Two days later, on the orders of minister of war Enver Pasha, a Turkish naval force under the command of the German Admiral Souchon attacked the Russian Black Sea Fleet in its bases. The Turks later sought to justify this unprovoked attack by claiming that th…

Fortresses Sites provided with permanent, artificial reinforcement, so as to protect them from capture by the methods of field warfare. For this reason, the battle for fortresses was always given a particular designation as “fortress warfare,” to distinguish it from “field warfare,” or war as waged by mobile field forces. The technical design of fortresses closely paralleled developments in artillery, which made tremendous advances during the 19th century (introduction of guns made from drawn steel, long-range howitzers, armor-piercing shells).…