World War I

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4

The Turkish Dominions

Considerable military activity took place in 1916 in three parts of the Turkish Ottoman Empire: Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Palestine. In Mesopotamia, the besieged town of Kut-al-Imara fell to the Turks on April 29, 1916. In December of that year the British began a drive towards the town, which they recaptured two months later. In Arabia in June 1916 Husein ibn Ali, grand sharif of Mecca, continued the traditional conflict between Arabs and Turks by leading, with his son Abdullah ibn Husein, the revolt of Al Ḩijāz (now in Saudi Arabia) against Turkish rule. Husein had the help of the British, who recognized him as king of Al Ḩijāz in December 1916. As a diversionary move to aid the Arabian revolt, the British in November began an advance from Egypt, which they had garrisoned since early in the war, into the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine, and by the early days of January 1917 had taken several fortifications.

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5

Negotiation Attempts

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, at that time a neutral nation, attempted to bring about negotiations between the belligerent groups of powers that would in his own words bring “peace without victory”. As a result of his efforts, and particularly of the conferences held in Europe during the year by Wilson's confidential adviser, Colonel Edward M. House, with leading European statesmen, some progress was at first apparently made towards bringing an end to the war. In December the German government informed the United States that the Central Powers were prepared to undertake peace negotiations. When the United States informed the Allies, Great Britain rejected the German advances for two reasons: Germany had not laid down any specific terms for peace; and the military situation at the time (Romania had just been conquered by the Central Powers) was so favourable to the Central Powers that no acceptable terms could reasonably be expected from them. Wilson continued his mediatory efforts, calling on the belligerents to specify the terms on which they would make peace. He finally succeeded in eliciting concrete terms from each group, but they proved irreconcilable.

E

1917: US Entrance—Russian Withdrawal

Wilson still attempted to find some basis of agreement between the two belligerent groups until a change in German war policy in January 1917 completely altered his point of view towards the war. In that month Germany announced that, beginning on February 1, it would resort to unrestricted submarine warfare against the shipping of Great Britain and all shipping to Great Britain. German military and civil experts had calculated that such warfare would bring about the defeat of Great Britain in six months. Because the United States had already expressed its strong opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare, which, it claimed, violated its rights as a neutral, and had even threatened to break relations with Germany over the issue, Wilson dropped his peacemaking efforts. On February 3, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany and at Wilson's request a number of Latin American nations, including Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, also did so. On April 6 the United States declared war on Germany.

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1

Arras and Ypres

In 1917 the Allies made two large-scale attempts to break the German lines on the western front. The first Allied attempt took place near Arras between April 9 and May 21. While it was being planned by the British and the French high commands, the Germans withdrew from their original line along the Aisne to a new position, previously prepared somewhat to the north, and known as the Hindenburg line, against which the Allies directed their attack. Their offensive included the Third Battle of Arras, in which Canadian troops captured the heavily fortified and stubbornly defended Vimy Ridge, and the British forces made an advance of 6 km (4 mi); and a battle on the Aisne, and one in the Champagne district, both of which resulted in a slight French gain at a cost in casualties so great as to cause a mutiny among the troops. Because of the failure of his reckless attack, General Nivelle on May 15 was replaced by General Henri Philippe Pétain; the new commander's policy was to remain on the defensive until US troops arrived.

The second great Allied offensive took place in June, when the British under Haig made an attempt in Flanders to break through the right wing of the German position. A preliminary battle at Messines set the stage for the main attacks (July 31-November 10) at Ypres, the so-called Third Battle of Ypres or Passendale campaign. Desperate fighting, in which each side suffered approximately 250,000 casualties, did not result in a breakthrough.

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2

Use of Tanks

Other attacks of Allied forces on the western front in 1917 included a battle at Verdun, in which the French succeeded in regaining an additional section of the area they had lost the previous year; and (November 20-December 3) the Battle of Cambrai, during which the British opened the attack with a raid by nearly 400 tanks. This was the first tank raid on such a scale in military history, and, but for lack of reserves, the British might have achieved a breakthrough. As it was, the British drove an 8-km (5-mi) salient into the German lines. German counter-attacks, however, compelled the British to yield most of the newly won ground.

After the United States entered the war in April 1917, it moved rapidly to raise and transport overseas a strong military force, known as the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), under the command of General John J. Pershing. By June 1917 more than 175,000 American troops were training in France, and one division was actually in the lines of the Allied sector near Belfort; by November 1918 the strength of the AEF was nearly 2 million. From the spring of 1918 US troops played an important part in the fighting.