The best known German bombing campaign of the First World War was that conducted against Britain. After several attacks by seaplanes, the main campaign began in January 1915 with airships. Until the Armistice the Marine-Fliegerabteilung (Navy Aviation Department) and Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (Imperial German Flying Corps) mounted over 50 bombing raids. The raids were generally referred to in Britain as Zeppelin raids despite Schtte-Lanz airships also being used. The Zeppelin company was much better known and was responsible for producing the majority of the airships.
Weather and night flying made airship navigation and accurate bombing difficult. Bombs were often dropped1917 miles off target (a raid on London hit Hull) and hitting military installations was a matter of luck. Civilian casualties made the Zeppelins an object of hatred. British defensive measures made airship raids much more risky and in 1917 they were largely replaced by aeroplanes. The military effect of the raids was small but they caused much alarm, some disruption to industrial production and the diversion of substantial resources from the Western Front. Concern about the conduct of the defence against the raids, the responsibility for which was divided between the Admiralty and the War Office, led to a parliamentary inquiry under Jan Smuts and the creation of the Royal Air Force (RAF) on 1 April 1918.Airships made 51 bombing raids on Britain during the war in which 557 people were killed and 1,358 injured. The airships dropped 5,806 bombs, causing damage worth £1,527,585. Eighty-four airships took part, of which 30 were either shot down or lost in accidents. Aeroplanes carried out 52 raids, dropping 2,772 bombs of 73.5 long tons (74.7 t) weight for the loss of 62 aircraft, killing 857 people, injuring 2,058 injured and causing £1,434,526 of damage. The German bombing has been called, by some authors, the first Blitz, alluding to The Blitz of the Second World War. The defence organisation developed by the British foreshadowed the Ground-controlled interception system used in the Second World War.
World War I, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, also known as the First World War and contemporaneously known as the Great War and by other names, was an international conflict that began on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918. It involved much of Europe, as well as Russia, the United States and Turkey, and was also fought in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, an estimated 9 million were killed in combat, while over 5 million civilians died from occupation, bombardment, hunger or disease. The genocides perpetrated by the Ottomans and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic spread by the movement of combatants during the war caused many millions of additional deaths worldwide.In 1914, the Great Powers were divided into two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente, consisting of France, Russia, and Britain, and the Triple Alliance, made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and the interlocking alliances involved the Powers in a series of diplomatic exchanges known as the July Crisis. On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia; Russia came to Serbia's defence and by 4 August, the conflict had expanded to include Germany, France and Britain, along with their respective colonial empires. In November, the Ottoman Empire, Germany and Austria formed the Central Powers, while in April 1915, Italy joined Britain, France, Russia and Serbia as the Allied Powers.
Facing a war on two fronts, German strategy in 1914 was to defeat France, then shift its forces to the East and knock out Russia, commonly known as the Schlieffen Plan. This failed when their advance into France was halted at the Marne; by the end of 1914, the two sides faced each other along the Western Front, a continuous series of trench lines stretching from the Channel to Switzerland that changed little until 1917. By contrast, the Eastern Front was far more fluid, with Austria-Hungary and Russia gaining, then losing large swathes of territory. Other significant theatres included the Middle East, the Alpine Front and the Balkans, bringing Bulgaria, Romania and Greece into the war.
Shortages caused by the Allied naval blockade led Germany to initiate unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917, bringing the previously neutral United States into the war on 6 April 1917. In Russia, the Bolsheviks seized power in the 1917 October Revolution and made peace in the March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, freeing up large numbers of German troops. By transferring these to the Western Front, the German General Staff hoped to win a decisive victory before American reinforcements could impact the war, and launched the March 1918 German spring offensive. Despite initial success, it was soon halted by heavy casualties and ferocious defence; in August, the Allies launched the Hundred Days Offensive and although the German army continued to fight hard, it could no longer halt their advance.Towards the end of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse; Bulgaria signed an Armistice on 29 September, followed by the Ottomans on 31 October, then Austria-Hungary on 3 November. Isolated, facing revolution at home and an army on the verge of mutiny, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and the new German government signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918, bringing the fighting to a close. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference imposed various settlements on the defeated powers, the best known being the Treaty of Versailles. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires led to numerous uprisings and the creation of independent states, including Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. For reasons that are still debated, failure to manage the instability that resulted from this upheaval during the interwar period ended with the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
1917Jun, 13
World War I: The deadliest German air raid on London of the war is carried out by Gotha G.IV bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.
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Events on 1917
- 22Jan
Woodrow Wilson
World War I: President Woodrow Wilson of the still-neutral United States calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. - 15Mar
Nicholas II of Russia
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the Russian throne ending the 304-year Romanov dynasty. - 2Apr
Woodrow Wilson
World War I: United States President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. - 5Jun
Conscription
World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day". - 27Jul
Battle of Passchendaele
The Allies reach the Yser Canal at the Battle of Passchendaele.