The First World War By Henry

POPPIES RED AS BLOOD

The anciant Belgian to

wn of Ypres [eep] was a point of a

huge front line that went as far as Switzerland.

The reason poppies-among others-are such a strong

reminder of the 1^st Battle of Ypres was that when the

the ground was very boggy and was almost entirely

mud, the first plant to grow back was the poppy. Indeed, the only plants

for miles around were dead tree trunks and stumps.

What would grow though, in their thousands, like

red grass, was poppies. In the battle, soldiers were often

burried where they fell. Crosses were everywhere,

and in between them were row on row of poppies.

This was left in the mind of the few live soldiers

and music and poetry was written. Several of these

can be read today, and pieces like Flanders fields

are now famous.

The First World War

The cause of the first world war was the result of an arms race between Britain, France and Germany. There was peace in 1914, but it was armed peace.

Many governments believed that the sheer size and force of their army, navy or air force would keep the opposition from striking.

Back in 1899, the ruler of Russia warned that the arms race in Europe would do the opposite of its intention. War was looming on the horizon.

The Alliances

Up until the late 19th century, Germany was made up of 39 states. In the 1817’s, they led a successful invasion of northeast France. Fearing retaliation from France, the Germans formed an alliance with Austrio-Hungary. A promise was made that they assist each other with military aid, should they be attacked by Russia. In 1882, Italy joined Germany to form a triple alliance, known widely as the Central Powers. Secretly, however, the Italians also made a pact with the French, to stay neutral if the Germans invaded France.

The Navy

Germany was very quick at building their infrastructure and making the most of their coal,iron and steel. Their ambitions were so strong that by 1915 they had out competed Britain and France as the world’s top industrial nation. The new ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm II also had ideas of a “Land Of The Sun”, to compete the nations of Britain and France. But if he was to do this, he had to expand is Navy, so he ordered the construction of a new fleet of war ships. This method was such that Germany had colonies in Africa, the Far East and the pacific,and the second biggest navy in the world, next to the British Royal navy.

By then, Britain had built a entirely new form of battleship. It was called the H.M.S Dreadnought, and this struck fear into the Kaiser. He ordered that a German Dreadnought be built. Germany now had 20 Dreadnoughts, Britain had 30. War was looming on the horizon.

Growing Power

Over the 1830’s, Russia and France were increasingly worried about Germany’s growing power as the Kaiser had gifted important positions to military officials. In 1893 they formed an an alliance with Germany and other central powers their top priority.

Britain was also concerned about this, as German powers might threaten their empire and navy.

Germans March

This caused outrage in Austria and Hungary, and the central powers, with Germany, promptly declared war on Serbia on July the 29th, and her ally, Great Britain, stepped in to defend her fellow nation. On July 30th, Russia declared that it would offer assistance to Serbia’s aid if need be. Kaiser Wilhelm II, seeing this as aggression, so war was declared. Then, like clockwork, France put their troops forward with Russia. Again, the central powers declared war on France. Kaiser had a crafty idea. He knew that Russia would take time to enter the German border, as it had poor rails. Meanwhile, he would defeat Paris.

Is Britain in or out?

The Russians would have arrived by now, so the Kaiser would in turn defeat Russia. This was put into effect, but because of the hurry, he took the most direct route to Paris- through Belgium. Now, after the argument over the Dreadnoghts, Britain was left to its own devices for a while. But now, Germany was invading Belgium. Britain had had a treaty over this, and she wasn’t going to break it. An attack by Britain was not in the Kaisers plans. Still, they did have the largest navy in the world, and Britain announced war on the central powers [Italy, seeing war beginning, had resigned pronto to their pact with France, see earlier.] 11 hours after the invasion. The Ist World War had began.

CONDOM

This is a small town which we visited. It is in South Eastern France. It was close to the canal where we were boating. The houses are made of stone and the streets are cobbles and narrow.

The First World War was a great loss of men for France and the memorial was quite large for the town. The men it remembered are still remembered as we can see by the flowers. We noticed that there were lots of brothers on the lists, there was even four brothers from one family. It made us feel very sad. It was surrounded by trees and looked rather beautiful. It also remembered the men who died in the second War as there was another plaque added. There were not as many dead as the French were invaded early on and the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower. So the French army was no more.

See also the Dolomites for more world war one history