World War I

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October and November 1914 because of the secret Turko-German Alliance, which was signed in August 1914. It threatened Russia's Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez Canal. The British Empire opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli and Mesopotamian campaigns in 1915. In Gallipoli, the Turks were successful in repelling the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) and forced their eventual withdrawal and evacuation. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–1916), British Empire forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917. Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome when Jerusalem was captured in December 1917, and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, under Field Marshall Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918.

Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man with a dream to conquer central Asia, but he was not a practical soldier. After launching a frontal offensive with one hundred thousand troops against the Russians, called the Battle of Sarikamis, in the Caucasus in December of 1914, he lost 86 percent of his force.

General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, achieved a string of victories over the Ottoman forces, driving them out of much of present day Armenia. Tragically, this would provide a context for the deportation and genocide against the Armenian population in eastern Armenia.

In 1917 Russian Grand Duke Nicholas (first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II) assumed senior control over the Caucasus front. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. But, in March of 1917, the tsar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart.

Italian Participation

Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882. Italy had its own designs against Austrian territory in the Trentino, Istria, and Dalmatia, and maintained a secret 1902 understanding with France, which effectively nullified its previous alliance commitments. Italy refused to join Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war because their alliance was defensive. The Austrian government started negotiations to obtain Italian neutrality in exchange for French territories namely Tunisia, but Italy joined the Triple Entente by signing the London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915; it declared war against Germany 15 months later.

In general, the Italians had numerical superiority but were poorly equipped. The Italians went on the offensive to relieve pressure on the other Allied fronts and achieve their territorial goals. In the Trentino-South Tyrol front, the Austro-Hungarian defense took advantage of the elevation of their bases in the mostly mountainous terrain, which was not suitable for military offensives. After an initial Austro-Hungaric strategic retreat to better positions, the front remained mostly unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen and Italian Alpini troops fought bitter, close combat battles during the summer and tried to survive during the winter in the high mountains. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the Altopiano of Asiago towards Verona and Padua in the spring of 1916, known as the Strafexpedition, but they also made little progress.

Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted 11 major offensives along the Isonzo River north of Trieste, known as the First through Eleventh Battles of the Isonzo. These attacks were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians who had the higher ground. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained practically stable for over a year, despite several Italian offensives. In the fall of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large reinforcements, including German assault troops. The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on October 26 that was spearheaded by German troops and supported by the Austrians and Hungarians. The attack resulted in the victory of Caporetto; the Italian army was routed, but after retreating more than 60 miles, it was able to reorganize and hold at the Piave River. In 1918 the Austrians repeatedly failed to break the Italian line and, decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, surrendered to the Entente powers in November.

War in the Balkans

Faced with the Russian threat, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army for Serbia. After suffering tremendous losses, the Austrians briefly captured the Serbian capital, but Serb counterattacks succeeded in expelling the invaders from the country by the end of 1914. For the first ten months of 1915. Austria used most of its spare armies to fight Italy. However, German and Austrian diplomats scored a great coup by convincing Bulgaria to join in a new attack on Serbia.

The conquest of Serbia was finally accomplished in a little more than a month, starting on October 7, when the Austrians and Germans attacked from the north. Four days later the Bulgarians attacked from the east. The Serbian army, attacked from two directions and facing certain defeat, retreated east and south into Albania, and then by ship to Greece. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers. Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-Allied Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos was dismissed by the pro-German King Constantine I before the Allied expeditionary force had even arrived.

The Salonica Front proved entirely immobile, so much so that it was joked that Salonica was the largest German prisoner of war camp. Only at the very end of the war were the Entente powers able to make a breakthrough, which was after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been removed, leaving the Front held by the Bulgarians alone. This led to Bulgaria's signing an armistice on September 29, 1918.