World War I

World War I is one of the worst wars that we have had in our history. Personally, my least favorite thing about history is learning about wars. Because of course, those weren’t the fun times but also because of how sad it is to see how many lives were actually lost in all of those wars. People thought back then that this was going to be the last big war. Little did they know that not long after that there was a World War II. That war was even worse. But in this essay I’m focusing more on World War I

The first fight was the Battle of Liege. During most of the war I noticed that Germany had their nose in most of the fights. So they were the ones that started this first fight. But during this debacle, the Germans ignored that Belgium was neutral and they didn’t want to have anything to do with this chaos that was happening. When Britain realized that….. They started to get defensive. Because think about what they were going through, they found out that Germany wasn’t leaving the neutral countries out of it, so what would hold them back from attacking Britain? This made them declare war. So from the very beginning all of the European countries were starting to get sucked into this chaos. During this time Germany was also taking on Russia. Most of the battles were the same as I see it. One side “wins” and the other “loses” but nothing major changes. That isn’t just for World War I, but for all the other battles that have happened in history. But the fight between Germany and Russia was a victory for the Germans. That pushed the Russians to back off a little.

You have to also take into account the allies that were made between certain European countries. If Britain was coming into the war, that means that all of the other countries that were on their side would support them through the battles. Same for all of the other allies that were brought into the fights. That’s part of the reason why there were so many countries that were pulled into this predicament. It was not until later that the U.S. jumped in because of something specific that Germany declared.

There wasn’t that many major battles of the war to point out because like I said, nothing ever really changes with the outcome. So the war sort of dragged on with a much of smaller battles incorporated into it. I always wonder what big thing that countries think they’ll solve with wars. Even to this day we are in war so we evidently aren’t learning anything from our past history. But with all the lives lost throughout just wars in history…… It’s crazy. Was it worth it? Did we solve anything or did we just gain more land for our country to own? That’s what I wonder. But to me, I never, ever will think that losing lives in wars are worth it. Because the outcome isn’t something grand.

But one of the bloodiest battles in World War I was the Battle of Verdun. There were over 700,000 casualties and guess what? There were no changes made between Germany and France who were in the fight. That’s the sad part. Those people fought for their country and they died for what? For another war to start up again? I understand that they wanted to support their country but what did their side get out of it. And was it worth it? The one thing that the French got out of it was the Germans to get off their tail and leave them alone for a little while. So technically, it was a victory for the French but there really wasn’t that much of a win for either sides. There was another battle that happened that had that same result as the Battle of Verdun. It was the Battle of Somme. The British, French, and Germans were the main countries in the war, if there was any other countries interfering than they were supporting a side that they were allied with. In this battle the territory only changed by 8 miles and there were many lives lost just like Verdun.

Germany got something taken away from them and it was a set back and a change in what was the norm for this war. I say that because the Germans held their head high in this war and were basically very confident since they were very successful in many of the battles. But, even though they were like that, Britain was able to take over some of Germany’s colonies located in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Of course, this gave Britain’s side a little more hope.

Later on in the war there was the Battle of Caporetto that took place. This was between the countries of the Triple Alliance. Italy was one of the countries that was a part of that group but they backed out of the alliance when the war began. Basically, in this fight Germany and Austria destroyed Italy’s army and basically pushed Italy out of World War I because they really didn’t have a choice since they now had to pick up their pieces and start building themselves back up again. That’s how bad of a predicament that country was in.

The Battle of Cambrai was the first battle that the United States took part in. This fight took place in 1917. At first the goal was to overwhelm the Germans. So this makes it quite obvious that the Germans were a really big threat to many of the European countries. But, it turned out to be another Germany victory. A while after that the Battle of Amiens was the final fight of World War I. Finally it was the end of this terrible time. But it was not as good for the Germans as with the other battles. In fact, this fight put them in retreat mode where they would back off for a while and regroup. But overall there wasn’t a big change with much territories except for some of Germany’s land getting lessened because of the aftermath of what terror they created.

Back then they didn’t have all of the technology that we have today. Especially with their artillery. So right around this time they started to create more elaborate inventions to help them with war. The first invention was machine guns. But, they were not just recently invented. They technically got invented around 1860 but they weren’t commonly used up until World War I. The machine gun helped the armies in the war incredibly. The reason is because these types of guns fired much faster than the ones that they used previously. So basically the machine guns were more efficient. Flamethrowers were another new weapon that was made during this time. Of course this gun is a little more self-explanatory but basically they were able to burn out their enemies out of their hideouts. So those were a lot of help with armies as well. Tracer bullets were also another new thing. As you can tell there was a lot of new inventions that even helped wars not just lifestyle. But anyway, tracer bullets helped people figure out where the bullets landed. There was one gun that was bigger than any other war weapon at the time. It was created by the Germans and it was called the Big Bertha. This shot a huge cannonball out to its enemies. So as you can probably guess this caused a lot of damage. It was a very successful and helpful invention for the Germans. The Germans were not the only successful inventors of artillery. Tanks were invented during this time by the British. Of course it was great against enemies because it gives great protection. This invention was such a success that later on other countries copied the idea to make some for their own armies and that is how we have gotten to use tanks in our wars to this day. There was even more transportation that was slowly becoming popular as well. This new transportation was airplanes. This wasn’t just for wars but it became a great help to them. This was the more successful mode of transportation. But the Germans tried to get themselves into that type of inventing. They created zeppelins. They are what we know today as blimps. Since they were so large they became threatening and scary but armies started to find a flaw in this new invention. This mode of transportation is flammable! So they weren’t as efficient in wars as they thought they would be. There was on more creation that was made specifically for wars. Poison Gas. This at first was becoming very successful and lives were lost from this terrible weapon. But other enemies started to become smarter. They made gas masks to protect themselves. So throughout these inventions, other countries just kept building their armies up. If one side created something big, the other side would upgrade to something even better to protect themselves from the other invention. So there wasn’t just one country that was better than any of the others. The fact was that lots of lives were lost while using these weapons and whether it was a good turnout or not it is still sad that there were so many people that fought for their country but never got to walk away with their victory.

After the war to summarize it all up there were treaties that were made to finally agree on peace from war (for now) and finally some of the countries that lost a lot could pick themselves back up. Germany was blamed a lot for the war and it was kind of true because they were basically in every single battle that took place in World War I. Unfortunately, there was also some other bad issues that happened after the war like the Flu of 1819. Diseases and sicknesses were not as easy to make a comeback from back then because they don’t have all of the medicine that we have today. So this wasn’t like a regular flu season that we have to this day….. People actually died from this sickness. But throughout these catastrophes, countries were finally done with the war. Everyone didn’t realize though that it wasn’t the end. World War II would come very soon and make the World War I look like child’s play because it was even worse. Imagine all the lives lost in this war…….. That makes me not even close to imagining what comes next with World War II.