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172-649: The first football league in the Swansea area was the Swansea Association League , played as early as 1897. The current league was formed in 1901 as the Swansea Junior League , and launched a Senior League in 1903–04, followed in 1904–05 by a name change to the Swansea & District League . The league was suspended during World War I . During the 1921–22 and 1922–23 seasons, the league expanded to include

344-511: A Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand , heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and declared war on 28 July. After Russia mobilised in Serbia's defence, Germany declared war on Russia and France , who had an alliance . The United Kingdom entered after Germany invaded Belgium , whose neutrality it guaranteed, and

516-630: A blue-water navy was vital for global power projection; Tirpitz had his books translated into German, while Wilhelm made them required reading for his advisors and senior military personnel. However, it was also an emotional decision, driven by Wilhelm's simultaneous admiration for the Royal Navy and desire to surpass it. Bismarck thought that the British would not interfere in Europe, as long as its maritime supremacy remained secure, but his dismissal in 1890 led to

688-583: A grenade at the Archduke's car and injured two of his aides. The other assassins were also unsuccessful. An hour later, as Ferdinand was returning from visiting the injured officers in hospital, his car took a wrong turn into a street where Gavrilo Princip was standing. He fired two pistol shots, fatally wounding Ferdinand and his wife Sophie . According to historian Zbyněk Zeman , in Vienna "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On 28 and 29 June,

860-536: A guerrilla warfare campaign and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe. Before the war, Germany had attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, a policy continued post-1914 by instigating uprisings in India , while the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition urged Afghanistan to join the war on the side of Central Powers. However, contrary to British fears of

1032-647: A 1999 article in War in History and in Inventing the Schlieffen Plan (2002) to The Real German War Plan, 1906–1914 (2011), Terence Zuber engaged in a debate with Terence Holmes, Annika Mombauer , Robert Foley, Gerhard Gross, Holger Herwig and others. Zuber proposed that the Schlieffen Plan was a myth concocted in the 1920s by partial writers, intent on exculpating themselves and proving that German war planning did not cause

1204-487: A Franco–Russian coalition and smash quickly fortified places. Schlieffen tried to make the army more operationally capable so that it was better than its potential enemies and could achieve a decisive victory. Schlieffen continued the practice of staff rides ( Stabs-Reise ) tours of territory where military operations might take place and war games , to teach techniques to command a mass conscript army. The new national armies were so huge that battles would be spread over

1376-644: A Gower Division and a Neath Division. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 all local leagues in Swansea suspended football, but in October both the Swansea & District League and a second league, the Swansea Gwalia League approved a merger for the duration of the war years as the Swansea Gwalia Combination with the league operating two senior divisions. In May 1946 the leagues agreed

1548-563: A cadre of German troops, to hold the fortresses along the Franco-German border. Aufmarsch I West became less feasible, as the military power of the Franco-Russian alliance increased and Britain aligned with France, making Italy unwilling to support Germany. Aufmarsch I West was dropped when it became clear that an isolated Franco-German war was impossible and that German allies would not intervene. Aufmarsch II West anticipated

1720-408: A change in policy and an Anglo-German naval arms race began. Despite the vast sums spent by Tirpitz, the launch of HMS  Dreadnought in 1906 gave the British a technological advantage. Ultimately, the race diverted huge resources into creating a German navy large enough to antagonise Britain, but not defeat it; in 1911, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg acknowledged defeat, leading to

1892-537: A city, or a province, and then sought winter quarters or made peace. The wars of the present day call whole nations to arms.... The entire financial resources of the State are appropriated to military purposes.... He had already written, in 1867, that French patriotism would lead them to make a supreme effort and use all their national resources. The quick victories of 1870 led Moltke to hope that he had been mistaken but by December, he planned an Exterminationskrieg against

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2064-504: A corps commander from 1902 to 1907 to implement his ideas, particularly in improving the training of Reserve officers and creating a unified youth organisation, the Jungdeutschlandbund (Young Germany League) to prepare teenagers for military service. The Strategiestreit (strategy debate) was a public and sometimes acrimonious argument after Hans Delbrück (1848–1929), challenged the orthodox army view and its critics. Delbrück

2236-592: A direct threat. The 1908–1909 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina , which it had occupied since 1878. Timed to coincide with the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, this unilateral action was denounced by the European powers, but accepted as there was no consensus on how to resolve the situation. Some historians see this as

2408-467: A gap between the German armies as they closed on Paris. The French army, reinforced by the British expeditionary corps, seized this opportunity to counter-attack and pushed the German army 40 to 80 km back. Both armies were then so exhausted that no decisive move could be implemented, so they settled in trenches, with the vain hope of breaking through as soon as they could build local superiority. In 1911,

2580-485: A hypothetical invasion of France by most of the German army and three possible French responses; the French were defeated in each but then Schlieffen proposed a French counter-envelopment of the German right wing by a new army. At the end of the year, Schlieffen played a war game of a two-front war, in which the German army was evenly divided and defended against invasions by the French and Russians, where victory first occurred in

2752-625: A means to an end not an end in itself, as did Terence Zuber in 1999 and the early 2000s. In the strategic circumstances of 1905, with the Russian army and the Tsarist state in turmoil after the defeat in Manchuria , the French would not risk open warfare; the Germans would have to force them out of the border fortress zone. The studies in 1905 demonstrated that this was best achieved by a big flanking manoeuvre through

2924-410: A much greater space than in the past and Schlieffen expected that army corps would fight Teilschlachten (battle segments) equivalent to the tactical engagements of smaller dynastic armies. Teilschlachten could occur anywhere, as corps and armies closed with the opposing army and became a Gesamtschlacht (complete battle), in which the significance of the battle segments would be determined by

3096-664: A permanent merger, with the league to be known as the Swansea District Gwalia League . In the 1947–48, the league changed its name to the current league title of the Swansea Senior Association Football League . The following clubs are competing in the Swansea Senior Football League during the 2024–25 season. The first league cup competition was held in 1908–09 with Mond Nickel Works being winners. They were successful in all

3268-462: A political vacuum and Schlieffen's weak position was exacerbated by his narrow military view. In the army, organisation and theory had no obvious link with war planning and institutional responsibilities overlapped. The General Staff devised deployment plans and its chief became de facto Commander-in-Chief in war but in peace, command was vested in the commanders of the twenty army corps districts. The corps district commanders were independent of

3440-540: A possibility. This was accentuated by British and Russian support for France against Germany during the 1911 Agadir Crisis . German economic and industrial strength continued to expand rapidly post-1871. Backed by Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz sought to use this growth to build an Imperial German Navy , that could compete with the British Royal Navy . This policy was based on the work of US naval author Alfred Thayer Mahan , who argued that possession of

3612-428: A preventive war diminished, peace would be preserved by the maintenance of a powerful German army instead. In 2005, Foley wrote that Foerster had exaggerated and that Moltke still believed that success in war was possible, even if incomplete and that it would make peace easier to negotiate. The possibility that a defeated enemy would not negotiate, was something that Moltke did not address. In February 1891, Schlieffen

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3784-475: A quick victory in a European war. The German army was forced to examine its assumptions about war because of this dissenting view and some writers moved closer to Delbrück's position. The debate provided the Imperial German Army with a fairly familiar alternative to Vernichtungsstrategie , after the opening campaigns of 1914. Assuming French hostility and a desire to recover Alsace–Lorraine , Moltke

3956-523: A quick war. The growth in the size of armies made a swift victory unlikely and British intervention would add a naval blockade to the rigours of an indecisive land war. Germany would face a war of attrition , similar to the view Delbrück had formed of the Seven Years' War. By the 1890s, the Strategiestreit had entered public discourse, when soldiers like the two Moltkes, also doubted the possibility of

4128-493: A revision of the army regulations, had improved the tactical capability of the Russian army and railway building would make it more strategically flexible, by keeping back troops from border districts, to make the army less vulnerable to a surprise-attack, moving men faster and with reinforcements available from the strategic reserve. The new possibilities enabled the Russians to increase the number of deployment plans, further adding to

4300-799: A revolt in India, the outbreak of the war saw a reduction in nationalist activity. Leaders from the Indian National Congress and other groups believed support for the British war effort would hasten Indian Home Rule , a promise allegedly made explicit in 1917 by Edwin Montagu , the Secretary of State for India . In 1914, the British Indian Army was larger than the British Army itself, and between 1914 and 1918 an estimated 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and

4472-504: A significant escalation, ending any chance of Austria cooperating with Russia in the Balkans, while also damaging diplomatic relations between Serbia and Italy. Tensions increased after the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War demonstrated Ottoman weakness and led to the formation of the Balkan League , an alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro , and Greece . The League quickly overran most of

4644-594: A slow and costly process that Schlieffen preferred to avoid by a flanking movement through the Low Countries . In 1893, this was judged impractical because of a lack of manpower and mobile heavy artillery . In 1899, Schlieffen added the manoeuvre to German war plans, as a possibility, if the French pursued a defensive strategy. The German army was more powerful and by 1905, after the Russian defeat in Manchuria , Schlieffen judged

4816-462: A strategy for a war of extraordinarily big battles, in which corps commanders would be independent in how they fought, provided that it was according to the intent of the commander in chief. The commander led the complete battle, like commanders in the Napoleonic Wars. The war plans of the commander in chief were intended to organise haphazard encounter battles to make "the sum of these battles

4988-606: A war between the Franco-Russian Entente and Germany, with Austria-Hungary supporting Germany and Britain perhaps joining the Entente. Italy was only expected to join Germany if Britain remained neutral. 80 per cent of the German army would operate in the west and 20 per cent in the east. France and Russia were expected to attack simultaneously, because they had the larger force. Germany would execute an "active defence", in at least

5160-471: A war on two fronts; the Schlieffen Plan envisaged using 80% of the army to defeat France, then switching to Russia. Since this required them to move quickly, mobilisation orders were issued that afternoon. Once the German ultimatum to Russia expired on the morning of 1 August, the two countries were at war. At a meeting on 29 July, the British cabinet had narrowly decided its obligations to Belgium under

5332-402: A weak Ottoman government, rather than an ambitious Slav power like Bulgaria . Russia had ambitions in northeastern Anatolia while its clients had overlapping claims in the Balkans. These competing interests divided Russian policy-makers and added to regional instability. Austrian statesmen viewed the Balkans as essential for the continued existence of their Empire and saw Serbian expansion as

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5504-451: A whole, the Somme offensive led to an estimated 420,000 British casualties, along with 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans. The diseases that emerged in the trenches were a major killer on both sides. The living conditions led to disease and infection, such as trench foot , lice , typhus , trench fever , and the ' Spanish flu '. At the start of the war, German cruisers were scattered across

5676-503: Is known, however, that from 1908 to 1913, military spending by the six major European powers increased by over 50% in real terms. The years before 1914 were marked by a series of crises in the Balkans, as other powers sought to benefit from the Ottoman decline. While Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russia considered itself the protector of Serbia and other Slav states, they preferred the strategically vital Bosporus straits to be controlled by

5848-724: The Kriegsgeschichte der Großen Generalstabes (War History Section) of the Great General Staff. When the Staff was abolished by the Treaty of Versailles , about eighty historians were transferred to the new Reichsarchiv in Potsdam . As President of the Reichsarchiv , General Hans von Haeften led the project, which was overseen from 1920 by a civilian historical commission. Theodor Jochim,

6020-558: The Schutzkorps was established, and carried out the persecution of Serbs. The assassination initiated the July Crisis, a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain. Believing that Serbian intelligence helped organise Franz Ferdinand's murder, Austrian officials wanted to use the opportunity to end their interference in Bosnia and saw war as

6192-626: The World War . In August 1914, the magazine The Independent wrote "This is the Great War. It names itself". In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's similarly wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War". Contemporary Europeans also referred to it as " the war to end war " and it was also described as "the war to end all wars" due to their perception of its unparalleled scale, devastation, and loss of life. The first recorded use of

6364-571: The 600,000 men of the 1st and 2nd Armies through a gap 12 mi (19 km) wide, which made it vital that the Belgian railways were captured quickly and intact. In 1908, the General Staff devised a plan to take the Fortified Position of Liège and its railway junction by coup de main on the 11th day of mobilisation. Later changes reduced the time allowed to the fifth day, which meant that

6536-866: The Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers . Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East , as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific , and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare ; the widespread use of artillery , machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of tanks and aircraft . World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history , resulting in an estimated 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded , plus some 10 million civilian dead from causes including genocide . The movement of large numbers of people

6708-616: The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of New Britain , then part of German New Guinea . On 28 October, the German cruiser SMS  Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang . Japan declared war on Germany before seizing territories in the Pacific, which later became the South Seas Mandate , as well as German Treaty ports on

6880-565: The Battle of Sedan (1 September 1870), there had been a republican coup d'état and the installation of a Government of National Defence (4 September 1870 – 13 February 1871), that declared guerre à outrance (war to the uttermost). From September 1870 – May 1871, the French Army confronted Moltke the Elder with new, improvised armies. The French destroyed bridges, railways, telegraphs and other infrastructure; food, livestock and other material

7052-494: The British Empire perhaps joining the Entente. The Kingdom of Italy was only expected to join Germany if Britain remained neutral; 60 per cent of the German army would deploy in the west and 40 per cent in the east. France and Russia would attack simultaneously, because they had the larger force and Germany would execute an "active defence", in at least the first operation/campaign of the war. German forces would mass against

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7224-576: The Meuse , rather than an advance towards Paris. In 1909, a new 7th Army with eight divisions was prepared to defend upper Alsace and to co-operate with the 6th Army in Lorraine. A transfer of the 7th Army to the right flank was studied but the prospect of a decisive battle in Lorraine became more attractive. In 1912, Moltke planned for a contingency where the French attacked from Metz to the Vosges Mountains and

7396-706: The Rüstungswende or 'armaments turning point', when he switched expenditure from the navy to the army. This decision was not driven by a reduction in political tensions but by German concern over Russia's quick recovery from its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and subsequent 1905 Russian Revolution . Economic reforms led to a significant post-1908 expansion of railways and transportation infrastructure, particularly in its western border regions. Since Germany and Austria-Hungary relied on faster mobilisation to compensate for their numerical inferiority compared to Russia,

7568-784: The United States entered the war on the Allied side following Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against Atlantic shipping. Later that year, the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution , and Soviet Russia signed an armistice with the Central Powers in December, followed by a separate peace in March 1918. That month, Germany launched an offensive in

7740-480: The hydrophone and depth charges were introduced, destroyers could potentially successfully attack a submerged submarine. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled; the solution was an extensive program of building new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys. The U-boats sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at

7912-591: The indecisive battles of the winter of 1870–1871 and the Kleinkrieg against francs-tireurs on the lines of communication, as better examples of the nature of modern war. Hoenig and Widdern conflated the old sense of Volkskrieg as a partisan war , with a newer sense of a war between industrialised states, fought by nations-in-arms and tended to explain French success by reference to German failings, implying that fundamental reforms were unnecessary. In Léon Gambetta und die Loirearmee (Leon Gambetta and

8084-442: The tank . After the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, Allied and German forces unsuccessfully tried to outflank each other, a series of manoeuvres later known as the " Race to the Sea ". By the end of 1914, the opposing forces confronted each other along an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from the Channel to the Swiss border. Since the Germans were normally able to choose where to stand, they generally held

8256-588: The 1839 Treaty of London did not require it to oppose a German invasion with military force; however, Prime Minister Asquith and his senior Cabinet ministers were already committed to supporting France, the Royal Navy had been mobilised, and public opinion was strongly in favour of intervention. On 31 July, Britain sent notes to Germany and France, asking them to respect Belgian neutrality; France pledged to do so, but Germany did not reply. Aware of German plans to attack through Belgium, French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre asked his government for permission to cross

8428-431: The 1879 Dual Alliance , which became the Triple Alliance when Italy joined in 1882. For Bismarck, the purpose of these agreements was to isolate France by ensuring the three Empires resolve any disputes between themselves. In 1887, Bismarck set up the Reinsurance Treaty , a secret agreement between Germany and Russia to remain neutral if either were attacked by France or Austria-Hungary. For Bismarck, peace with Russia

8600-441: The 1913 Treaty of London , which had created an independent Albania while enlarging the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, disputes between the victors sparked the 33-day Second Balkan War , when Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913; it was defeated, losing most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Southern Dobruja to Romania. The result was that even countries which benefited from

8772-399: The 1970s, Martin van Creveld , John Keegan , Hew Strachan and others, studied the practical aspects of an invasion of France through Belgium and Luxembourg. They judged that the physical constraints of German, Belgian and French railways and the Belgian and northern French road networks made it impossible to move enough troops far enough and fast enough for them to fight a decisive battle if

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8944-470: The Army of the Loire, 1874) and Leon Gambetta und seine Armeen (Leon Gambetta and his Armies, 1877), Goltz wrote that Germany must adopt ideas used by Léon Gambetta, by improving the training of Reserve and Landwehr officers, to increase the effectiveness of the Etappendienst (supply service troops). Goltz advocated the conscription of every able-bodied man and a reduction of the period of service to two years (a proposal that got him sacked from

9116-409: The Austrians and Serbs clashed at the battles of the Cer and Kolubara ; over the next two weeks, Austrian attacks were repulsed with heavy losses. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening their efforts against Russia. Serbia's victory against Austria-Hungary in the 1914 invasion has been called one of the major upset victories of the twentieth century. In 1915,

9288-593: The Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital, Belgrade . A Serbian counter-attack in the Battle of Kolubara succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914. For the first 10 months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join the attack on Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia , Croatia and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia. Bulgaria declared war on Serbia on 14 October 1915 and joined in

9460-448: The Austrians in the Austro-Prussian War (14 June – 23 August 1866) and the French imperial armies in 1870, as evidence that a strategy of decisive victory could still succeed. Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891), led the armies of the North German Confederation that achieved a speedy and decisive victory against the armies of the Second French Empire (1852–1870) of Napoleon III (1808–1873). On 4 September, after

9632-491: The Balkan Wars, such as Serbia and Greece, felt cheated of their "rightful gains", while for Austria it demonstrated the apparent indifference with which other powers viewed their concerns, including Germany. This complex mix of resentment, nationalism and insecurity helps explain why the pre-1914 Balkans became known as the " powder keg of Europe ". On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria , heir presumptive to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria , visited Sarajevo ,

9804-433: The Belgian, British and French armies. The German armies attacking in the north reached an area 19 mi (30 km) north-east of Paris but failed to trap the Allied armies and force on them a decisive battle. The German advance outran its supplies; Joffre used French railways to move the retreating armies, re-group behind the river Marne and the Paris fortified zone, faster than the Germans could pursue. The French defeated

9976-404: The Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived. The Macedonian front was at first mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916 following the costly Monastir offensive , which brought stabilisation of

10148-410: The Chinese Shandong peninsula at Tsingtao . After Vienna refused to withdraw its cruiser SMS  Kaiserin Elisabeth from Tsingtao, Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary, and the ship was sunk in November 1914. Within a few months, Allied forces had seized all German territories in the Pacific, leaving only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea. Some of the first clashes of

10320-404: The Elder drew up a deployment plan for 1871–1872, expecting that another rapid victory could be achieved but the French introduced conscription in 1872. By 1873, Moltke thought that the French army was too powerful to be defeated quickly and in 1875, Moltke considered a preventive war but did not expect an easy victory. The course of the second period of the Franco-Prussian War and the example of

10492-419: The Elder in the 1870s and 1880s. Belgian neutrality need not have been breached and a negotiated peace could have been achieved, since a decisive victory in the west was impossible and not worth the attempt. Like the Strategiestreit before the war, this led to a long exchange between Delbrück and the official and semi-official historians of the former Great General Staff, who held that an offensive strategy in

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10664-511: The First World War. Later scholarship did not uphold the Zuber thesis except as a catalyst for research which revealed that Schlieffen had been far less dogmatic than had been presumed. After the end of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in 1815, European aggression had turned outwards and the fewer wars fought within the continent had been Kabinettskriege , local conflicts decided by professional armies loyal to dynastic rulers. Military strategists had adapted by creating plans to suit

10836-486: The Franco-Italian border and by Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces in Germany. It was assumed that France would be on the defensive because their troops would be (greatly) outnumbered. To win the war, Germany and its allies would have to attack France. After the deployment of the entire German army in the west, they would attack through Belgium and Luxembourg, with virtually all the German force. The Germans would rely on an Austro-Hungarian and Italian contingents, formed around

11008-400: The French army was six times larger than in 1870, the survivors from a defeat on the frontier could make counter-outflanking moves from Paris and Lyon against a pursuit by the German armies. Despite his doubts, Moltke retained the concept of a big enveloping manoeuvre, because of changes in the international balance of power. The Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) weakened

11180-522: The French population by taking the war into the south, once the size of the Prussian Army had been increased by another 100 battalions of reservists. Moltke intended to destroy or capture the remaining resources which the French possessed, against the protests of the German civilian authorities, who after the fall of Paris, negotiated a quick end to the war. Colmar von der Goltz (1843–1916) and other military thinkers, like Fritz Hoenig in Der Volkskrieg an der Loire im Herbst 1870 (The People's War in

11352-465: The French retreated from the frontier. Most of the pre-1914 planning of the German General Staff was secret and the documents were destroyed when deployment plans were superseded each April. The bombing of Potsdam in April 1945 destroyed much of the Prussian army archive and only incomplete records and other documents survived. Some records turned up after the fall of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), making an outline of German war planning possible for

11524-403: The General Staff Chief and trained soldiers according to their own devices. The federal system of government in the German empire included ministries of war in the constituent states, which controlled the forming and equipping of units, command and promotions. The system was inherently competitive and became more so after the Waldersee period, with the likelihood of another Volkskrieg , a war of

11696-548: The German High Seas Fleet was confined to port. German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain. The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival. The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond

11868-465: The German Army increased in size from 1908 to 1914, he changed the allocation of forces between the two wings to 70:30. He also considered Dutch neutrality essential for German trade and cancelled the incursion into the Netherlands, which meant any delays in Belgium threatened the viability of the plan. Historian Richard Holmes argues that these changes meant the right wing was not strong enough to achieve decisive success. The initial German advance in

12040-427: The German army would attack. After the Russian army had been defeated, the German army in the east would pursue the remnants. The German army in the west would stay on the defensive, perhaps conducting a counter-offensive but without reinforcements from the east. Aufmarsch II Ost became a secondary deployment plan when the international situation made an isolated Russo-German war impossible. Aufmarsch II Ost had

12212-462: The German right wing would sweep through the Netherlands and Belgium , then swing south, encircling Paris and trapping the French army against the Swiss border. The plan's creator, Alfred von Schlieffen , head of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, estimated that this would take six weeks, after which the German army would transfer to the East and defeat the Russians. The plan was substantially modified by his successor, Helmuth von Moltke

12384-480: The Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000 to 975,000 casualties between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice. The Battle of the Somme was an Anglo-French offensive from July to November 1916. The opening day on 1 July 1916 was the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army , which suffered 57,500 casualties, including 19,200 dead. As

12556-428: The Germans defended on the left (southern) wing, until all troops not needed on the right (northern) flank could move south-west through Metz against the French flank. German offensive thinking had evolved into a possible attack from the north, one through the centre or an envelopment by both wings. Aufmarsch I West anticipated an isolated Franco-German war, in which Germany might be assisted by an Italian attack on

12728-568: The Great General Staff but was then introduced in 1893) in a nation-in-arms. The mass army would be able to compete with armies raised on the model of the improvised French armies and be controlled from above, to avoid the emergence of a radical and democratic people's army. Goltz maintained the theme in other publications up to 1914, notably in Das Volk in Waffen (The People in Arms, 1883) and used his position as

12900-544: The Hauts de Meuse and in the Woëvre . and that to achieve this, the French armies were to concentrate, ready to attack either side of Metz–Thionville or north into Belgium, in the direction of Arlon and Neufchâteau . An alternative concentration area for the Fourth and Fifth armies was specified, in case the Germans advanced through Luxembourg and Belgium but an enveloping attack west of

13072-617: The Loire Valley in Autumn 1870, 1893–1899) and Georg von Widdern in Der Kleine Krieg und der Etappendienst ( Petty Warfare and the Supply Service, 1892–1907), called the short-war belief of mainstream writers like Friedrich von Bernhardi (1849–1930) and Hugo von Freytag-Loringhoven (1855–1924) an illusion. They saw the longer war against the improvised armies of the French republic,

13244-702: The Meuse was not anticipated. The gap between the Fifth Army and the North Sea was covered by Territorial units and obsolete fortresses. When Germany declared war, France implemented Plan XVII with five attacks, later named the Battle of the Frontiers . The German deployment plan, Aufmarsch II, concentrated German forces (less 20 per cent to defend Prussia and the German coast) on the German–Belgian border. The German force

13416-675: The Middle East. In all, 140,000 soldiers served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East, with 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded. The suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the British government to grant self-government to India afterward, bred disillusionment, resulting in the campaign for full independence led by Mahatma Gandhi . Pre-war military tactics that had emphasised open warfare and individual riflemen proved obsolete when confronted with conditions prevailing in 1914. Technological advances allowed

13588-482: The Netherlands and Belgium. Schlieffen's thinking was adopted as Aufmarsch I (Deployment [Plan] I) in 1905 (later called Aufmarsch I West ) of a Franco-German war, in which Russia was assumed to be neutral and Italy and Austria-Hungary were German allies. "[Schlieffen] did not think that the French would necessarily adopt a defensive strategy" in such a war, even though their troops would be outnumbered but this

13760-941: The OHL operations section in 1914, published Bis zur Marne 1914: Beiträge zur Beurteilung der Kriegführen bis zum Abschluss der Marne-Schlacht (Until the Marne 1914: Contributions to the Assessment of the Conduct of the War up to the Conclusion of the Battle of the Marne) in 1920. The writers called the Schlieffen Memorandum of 1905–1906 an infallible blueprint and that all Moltke the Younger had to do to almost guarantee that

13932-760: The Ottomans joined the Central Powers in November. Germany's strategy in 1914 was to quickly defeat France, then to transfer its forces to the east, but its advance was halted in September , and by the end of the year the Western Front consisted of a continuous line of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland. The Eastern Front was more dynamic, but neither side gained a decisive advantage, despite costly offensives. Italy , Bulgaria , Romania , Greece and others joined in from 1915 onward. In April 1917,

14104-548: The Ottomans' territory in the Balkans during the 1912–1913 First Balkan War , much to the surprise of outside observers. The Serbian capture of ports on the Adriatic resulted in partial Austrian mobilisation, starting on 21 November 1912, including units along the Russian border in Galicia . The Russian government decided not to mobilise in response, unprepared to precipitate a war. The Great Powers sought to re-assert control through

14276-606: The Russian Stavka agreed with the French to attack Germany within fifteen days of mobilisation, ten days before the Germans had anticipated, although it meant the two Russian armies that entered East Prussia on 17 August did so without many of their support elements. By the end of 1914, German troops held strong defensive positions inside France, controlled the bulk of France's domestic coalfields, and inflicted 230,000 more casualties than it lost itself. However, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany

14448-456: The Russian army and the Tsarist state and made an offensive strategy against France more realistic for a time. By 1910, Russian rearmament, army reforms and reorganisation, including the creation of a strategic reserve, made the army more formidable than before 1905. Railway building in Congress Poland reduced the time needed for mobilisation and a "war preparation period" was introduced by

14620-408: The Russian army. Aufmarsch II West became the main German deployment plan, as the French and Russians expanded their armies and the German strategic situation deteriorated, Germany and Austria-Hungary being unable to increase their military spending to match their rivals. Aufmarsch I Ost was for a war between the Franco-Russian Entente and Germany, with Austria-Hungary supporting Germany and

14792-401: The Russian invasion force and defeat it in a counter-offensive, while conducting a conventional defence against the French. Rather than pursue the Russians over the border, 50 per cent of the German force in the east (about 20 per cent of the German army) would be transferred to the west, for a counter-offensive against the French. Aufmarsch I Ost became a secondary deployment plan, as it

14964-439: The Russians, to provide for mobilisation to begin with a secret order, reducing mobilisation time further. The Russian reforms cut mobilisation time by half compared with 1906 and French loans were spent on railway building; German military intelligence thought that a programme due to begin in 1912 would lead to 6,200 mi (10,000 km) of new track by 1922. Modern, mobile artillery, a purge of older, inefficient officers and

15136-422: The Schlieffen Memorandum and described the six drafts that were necessary before Schlieffen was satisfied with it, demonstrating his difficulty of finding a way to win the anticipated war on two fronts and that until late in the process, Schlieffen had doubts about how to deploy the armies. The enveloping move of the armies was a means to an end, the destruction of the French armies and that the plan should be seen in

15308-631: The Serbian retreat toward the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac on 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians also conquered Montenegro. The surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated to Greece. After the conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against

15480-448: The Wars of Unification had prompted Austria-Hungary to begin conscription in 1868 and Russia in 1874. Moltke assumed that in another war, Germany would have to fight a coalition of France and Austria or France and Russia. Even if one opponent was quickly defeated, the victory could not be exploited before the Germans would have to redeploy their armies against the second enemy. By 1877, Moltke

15652-629: The West was very successful. By the end of August, the Allied left, which included the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), was in full retreat , and the French offensive in Alsace-Lorraine was a disastrous failure, with casualties exceeding 260,000. German planning provided broad strategic instructions while allowing army commanders considerable freedom in carrying them out at the front, but von Kluck used this freedom to disobey orders, opening

15824-542: The Younger took over from Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff on 1 January 1906, beset with doubts about the possibility of a German victory in a great European war. French knowledge about German intentions might prompt them to retreat to evade an envelopment that could lead to Ermattungskrieg , a war of exhaustion and leave Germany exhausted, even if it did eventually win. A report on hypothetical French ripostes against an invasion, concluded that since

15996-430: The Younger . Under Schlieffen, 85% of German forces in the west were assigned to the right wing, with the remainder holding along the frontier. By keeping his left-wing deliberately weak, he hoped to lure the French into an offensive into the "lost provinces" of Alsace-Lorraine , which was the strategy envisaged by their Plan XVII . However, Moltke grew concerned that the French might push too hard on his left flank and as

16168-403: The Younger failed to follow the blueprint devised by Schlieffen, condemning the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare . In 1956, Gerhard Ritter published Der Schlieffenplan: Kritik eines Mythos ( The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth ), which began a period of revision, when the details of the supposed Schlieffen Plan were subjected to scrutiny. Treating the plan as a blueprint

16340-447: The age of Volkskrieg had returned. According to Ritter (1969) the contingency plans from 1872 to 1890 were his attempts to resolve the problems caused by international developments, by adopting a strategy of the defensive, after an opening tactical offensive, to weaken the opponent, a change from Vernichtungsstrategie to Ermattungsstrategie . Foerster (1987) wrote that Moltke wanted to deter war altogether and that his calls for

16512-446: The aggressor, German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg delayed the commencement of war preparations until 31 July. That afternoon, the Russian government were handed a note requiring them to "cease all war measures against Germany and Austria-Hungary" within 12 hours. A further German demand for neutrality was refused by the French who ordered general mobilisation but delayed declaring war. The German General Staff had long assumed they faced

16684-509: The army to be formidable enough to make the northern flanking manoeuvre the basis of a war plan against France alone. In 1905, Schlieffen wrote that the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), had shown that the power of Russian army had been overestimated and that it would not recover quickly from the defeat. Schlieffen could contemplate leaving only a small force in the east and in 1905, wrote War against France which

16856-466: The attack by the Austro-Hungarian army under Mackensen's army of 250,000 that was already underway. Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops in total. The Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania . The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo . Montenegro covered

17028-413: The attacking forces would need to get moving only hours after the mobilisation order had been given. Extant records of Moltke's thinking up to 1911–1912 are fragmentary and almost wholly lacking to the outbreak of war. In a 1906 staff ride Moltke sent an army through Belgium but concluded that the French would attack through Lorraine, where the decisive battle would be fought before an enveloping move from

17200-515: The author of Graf Schlieffen und der Weltkrieg (Count Schlieffen and the World War, 1925), Wilhelm Groener , head of Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, the wartime German General Staff) railway section in 1914, published Das Testament des Grafen Schlieffen: Operativ Studien über den Weltkrieg (The Testament of Count Schlieffen: Operational Studies of the World War) in 1929 and Gerhard Tappen , head of

17372-535: The best way of achieving this. However, the Foreign Ministry had no solid proof of Serbian involvement. On 23   July, Austria delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, listing ten demands made intentionally unacceptable to provide an excuse for starting hostilities. Serbia ordered general mobilisation on 25   July, but accepted all the terms, except for those empowering Austrian representatives to suppress "subversive elements" inside Serbia, and take part in

17544-510: The book. Delbrück wrote that Frederick the Great had used Ermattungsstrategie during the Seven Years' War (1754/56–1763) because eighteenth century armies were small and made up of professionals and pressed men. The professionals were hard to replace and the conscripts would run away if the army tried to live off the land, operate in close country or pursue a defeated enemy, in the manner of

17716-483: The border and pre-empt such a move. To avoid violating Belgian neutrality, he was told any advance could come only after a German invasion. Instead, the French cabinet ordered its Army to withdraw 10 km behind the German frontier, to avoid provoking war. On 2 August, Germany occupied Luxembourg and exchanged fire with French units when German patrols entered French territory; on 3   August, they declared war on France and demanded free passage across Belgium, which

17888-527: The campaign saw the first use of anti-aircraft warfare after an Austrian plane was shot down with ground-to-air fire, as well as the first medical evacuation by the Serbian army. Upon mobilisation, in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan , 80% of the German Army was located on the Western Front, with the remainder acting as a screening force in the East. Rather than a direct attack across their shared frontier,

18060-636: The capital of the recently annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina . Cvjetko Popović , Gavrilo Princip , Nedeljko Čabrinović , Trifko Grabež , Vaso Čubrilović ( Bosnian Serbs ) and Muhamed Mehmedbašić (from the Bosniaks community), from the movement known as Young Bosnia , took up positions along the Archduke's motorcade route, to assassinate him. Supplied with arms by extremists within the Serbian Black Hand intelligence organisation, they hoped his death would free Bosnia from Austrian rule. Čabrinović threw

18232-520: The chance of a decisive outcome, while it had failed to achieve the primary objective of avoiding a long, two-front war. As was apparent to several German leaders, this amounted to a strategic defeat; shortly after the First Battle of the Marne , Crown Prince Wilhelm told an American reporter "We have lost the war. It will go on for a long time but lost it is already". On 30 August 1914, New Zealand occupied German Samoa (now Samoa ). On 11 September,

18404-456: The characteristics of the post-Napoleonic scene. In the late nineteenth century, military thinking remained dominated by the German Wars of Unification (1864–1871), which had been short and decided by great battles of annihilation. In Vom Kriege (On War, 1832) Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) had defined decisive battle as a victory which had political results ... the object is to overthrow

18576-438: The common border, to defend against a French invasion of Alsace-Lorraine. Moltke also altered the course of an advance by the armies on the right (northern) wing, to avoid the Netherlands, retaining the country as a useful route for imports and exports and denying it to the British as a base of operations. Advancing only through Belgium, meant that the German armies would lose the railway lines around Maastricht and have to squeeze

18748-511: The cost of 199 submarines. World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS  Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol. Faced with Russia in the east, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia. After suffering heavy losses,

18920-513: The creation of new independent states, including Poland , Finland , the Baltic states , Czechoslovakia , and Yugoslavia . The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace, but its failure to manage instability during the interwar period contributed to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Before World War II , the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply

19092-449: The creation of strong defensive systems largely impervious to massed infantry advances, such as barbed wire , machine guns and above all far more powerful artillery , which dominated the battlefield and made crossing open ground extremely difficult. Both sides struggled to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties. In time, technology enabled the production of new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and

19264-948: The crowds listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened". Nevertheless, the impact of the murder of the heir to the throne was significant, and has been described by historian Christopher Clark as a " 9/11 effect, a terrorist event charged with historic meaning, transforming the political chemistry in Vienna". Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged subsequent anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo . Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were also organised outside Sarajevo, in other cities in Austro-Hungarian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. A further 460 Serbs were sentenced to death. A predominantly Bosniak special militia known as

19436-463: The difficulty of Germany achieving a swift victory in an eastern campaign. The likelihood of a long and indecisive war against Russia, made a quick success against France more important, so as to have the troops available for an eastern deployment. Moltke the Younger made substantial changes to the offensive concept sketched by Schlieffen in the memorandum War against France of 1905–06. The 6th and 7th Armies with VIII Corps were to assemble along

19608-548: The east would have resulted in another 1812. The war could only have been won against Germany's most powerful enemies, France and Britain. The debate between the Delbrück and Schlieffen "schools" rumbled on through the 1920s and 1930s. In Sword and the Sceptre; The Problem of Militarism in Germany (1969), Gerhard Ritter wrote that Moltke the Elder changed his thinking to accommodate the change in warfare evident since 1871, by fighting

19780-450: The east. Schlieffen was open-minded about a defensive strategy and the political advantages of the Entente being the aggressor, not just the "military technician" portrayed by Ritter. The variety of the 1905 war games show that Schlieffen took account of circumstances; if the French attacked Metz and Strasbourg , the decisive battle would be fought in Lorraine . Ritter wrote that invasion was

19952-401: The enemy, to render him politically helpless or militarily impotent, thus forcing him to sign whatever peace we please. Niederwerfungsstrategie , ( prostration strategy, later termed Vernichtungsstrategie (destruction strategy) a policy of seeking decisive victory) replaced the slow, cautious approach to war that had been overturned by Napoleon . German strategists judged the defeat of

20124-671: The expansion of the French colonial empire . In 1873, Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors , which included Austria-Hungary , Russia and Germany. After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War , the League was dissolved due to Austrian concerns over the expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans , an area they considered to be of vital strategic interest. Germany and Austria-Hungary then formed

20296-471: The faltering German advance with a counter-offensive at the First Battle of the Marne , assisted by the British. Moltke the Younger had tried to apply the offensive strategy of Aufmarsch I (a plan for an isolated Franco-German war, with all German forces deployed against France) to the inadequate western deployment of Aufmarsch II (only 80 per cent of the army assembled in the west) to counter Plan XVII . In 2014, Terence Holmes wrote, Moltke followed

20468-509: The first head of the Reichsarchiv section for collecting documents, wrote that ... the events of the war, strategy and tactics can only be considered from a neutral, purely objective perspective which weighs things dispassionately and is independent of any ideology. The Reichsarchiv historians produced Der Weltkrieg , a narrative history (also known as the Weltkriegwerk ) in fourteen volumes published from 1925 to 1944, which became

20640-411: The first operation/campaign of the war. German forces would mass against the French invasion force and defeat it in a counter-offensive, while conducting a conventional defence against the Russians. Rather than pursue the retreating French armies over the border, 25 per cent of the German force in the west ( 20 per cent of the German army) would be transferred to the east, for a counter-offensive against

20812-400: The first time on the Western Front. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, it became one of the most feared and best-remembered horrors of the war. In February 1916, the Germans attacked French defensive positions at the Battle of Verdun , lasting until December 1916. Casualties were greater for the French, but

20984-449: The first time, proving wrong much post-1918 writing. In the 2000s, a document, RH61/v.96 , was discovered in the trove inherited from the GDR, which had been used in a 1930s study of pre-war German General Staff war planning. Inferences that Schlieffen's war planning was solely offensive were found to have been made by extrapolating his writings and speeches on tactics into grand strategy . From

21156-586: The front. Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough in September 1918 in the Vardar offensive , after most German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn. The Bulgarians were defeated at the Battle of Dobro Pole , and by 25 September British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on 29 September 1918. The German high command responded by despatching troops to hold

21328-526: The globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping . These were systematically hunted down by the Royal Navy, though not before causing considerable damage. One of the most successful was the SMS ; Emden , part of the German East Asia Squadron stationed at Qingdao , which seized or sank 15 merchantmen, a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Most of the squadron

21500-534: The high ground, while their trenches tended to be better built; those constructed by the French and English were initially considered "temporary", only needed until an offensive would destroy the German defences. Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances. On 22 April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres , the Germans (violating the Hague Convention ) used chlorine gas for

21672-467: The investigation and trial of Serbians linked to the assassination. Claiming this amounted to rejection, Austria broke off diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilisation the next day; on 28 July, they declared war on Serbia and began shelling Belgrade . Russia ordered general mobilization in support of Serbia on 30 July. Anxious to ensure backing from the SPD political opposition by presenting Russia as

21844-529: The later armies of the Coalition Wars. Dynastic armies were tied to magazines for supply, which made them incapable of fulfilling a strategy of annihilation. Delbrück analysed the European alliance system that had developed since the 1890s, the Boer War (11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902) and the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) and concluded that the rival forces were too well-balanced for

22016-475: The line, but these forces were too weak to re-establish a front. Schlieffen Plan The Schlieffen Plan ( German : Schlieffen-Plan , pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn] ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen

22188-423: The nation in arms, rather than the few European wars fought by small professional armies after 1815. Schlieffen concentrated on matters he could influence and pressed for increases in the size of the army and the adoption of new weapons. A big army would create more choices about how to fight a war and better weapons would make the army more formidable. Mobile heavy artillery could offset numerical inferiority against

22360-444: The next war on the defensive in general, All that was left to Germany was the strategic defensive, a defensive, however, that would resemble that of Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War. It would have to be coupled with a tactical offensive of the greatest possible impact until the enemy was paralysed and exhausted to the point where diplomacy would have a chance to bring about a satisfactory settlement. Moltke tried to resolve

22532-450: The north took effect. The right wing armies would counter-attack through Metz, to exploit the opportunity created by the French advancing beyond their frontier fortifications. In 1908, Moltke expected the British to join the French but that neither would violate Belgian neutrality, leading the French to attack towards the Ardennes. Moltke continued to plan to envelop the French near Verdun and

22704-460: The ocean, even to neutral ships. Since there was limited response to this tactic, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare. The Battle of Jutland in May/June 1916 was the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history. The clash was indecisive, though the Germans inflicted more damage than they received; thereafter the bulk of

22876-451: The offensive", proved to be inadequate. The attacks of the French forces in southern Belgium and Luxembourg were conducted with negligible reconnaissance or artillery support and were bloodily repulsed, without preventing the westward manoeuvre of the northern German armies. Within a few days, the French had suffered costly defeats and the survivors were back where they began. The Germans advanced through Belgium and northern France, pursuing

23048-563: The only source written with free access to the German documentary records of the war. From 1920, semi-official histories had been written by Hermann von Kuhl , the 1st Army Chief of Staff in 1914, Der Deutsche Generalstab in Vorbereitung und Durchführung des Weltkrieges (The German General Staff in the Preparation and Conduct of the World War, 1920) and Der Marnefeldzug (The Marne Campaign) in 1921, by Lieutenant-Colonel Wolfgang Foerster ,

23220-420: The plan as a blueprint for victory. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914). German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by tampering with it, out of timidity. They managed to establish a commonly accepted narrative that Moltke

23392-402: The plan of the commander in chief, who would give operational orders to the corps, The success of battle today depends more on conceptual coherence than on territorial proximity. Thus, one battle might be fought in order to secure victory on another battlefield. in the former manner to battalions and regiments. War against France (1905), the memorandum later known as the "Schlieffen Plan", was

23564-540: The pre-World War competitions apart from the 1910–11 season when they were knocked out at the semi-final stage by Swansea United. A partial list of the winners of the Senior Cup competition can be found below. Ragged School have won the cup 14 times. World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War , was a global conflict between two coalitions:

23736-789: The protection of the " cruiser rules ", which demanded warning and movement of crews to "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet). Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare , realising the Americans would eventually enter the war. Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but, after initial successes, eventually failed to do so. The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in convoys , escorted by destroyers . This tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after

23908-654: The rear and guarding lines of communication from francs-tireurs ( irregular military forces). The Germans had defeated the forces of the Second Empire by superior numbers and then found the tables turned; only their superior training and organisation had enabled them to capture Paris and dictate peace terms. Attacks by francs-tireurs forced the diversion of 110,000 men to guard railways and bridges, which put great strain on Prussian manpower. Moltke wrote later, The days are gone by when, for dynastical ends, small armies of professional soldiers went to war to conquer

24080-512: The same flaw as Aufmarsch I Ost , in that it was feared that a French offensive would be harder to defeat, if not countered with greater force, either slower as in Aufmarsch I Ost or with greater force and quicker, as in Aufmarsch II West . After amending Plan XVI in September 1911, Joffre and the staff took eighteen months to revise the French concentration plan, the concept of which

24252-454: The strategic conundrum of a need for quick victory and pessimism about a German victory in a Volkskrieg by resorting to Ermattungsstrategie , beginning with an offensive intended to weaken the opponent, eventually to bring an exhausted enemy to diplomacy, to end the war on terms with some advantage for Germany, rather than to achieve a decisive victory by an offensive strategy. In The Schlieffen Plan (1956, trans. 1958), Ritter published

24424-414: The superiority of German military thinking, Schlieffen had reservations about the strategy. Research published by Gerhard Ritter (1956, English edition in 1958) showed that the memorandum went through six drafts. Schlieffen considered other possibilities in 1905, using war games to model a Russian invasion of eastern Germany against a smaller German army. In a staff ride during the summer, Schlieffen tested

24596-464: The term First World War was in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel who stated, "There is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word". For much of the 19th century, the major European powers maintained a tenuous balance of power , known as the Concert of Europe . After 1848, this

24768-682: The threat posed by the closing of this gap was more important than competing with the Royal Navy. After Germany expanded its standing army by 170,000 troops in 1913, France extended compulsory military service from two to three years; similar measures were taken by the Balkan powers and Italy, which led to increased expenditure by the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary. Absolute figures are difficult to calculate due to differences in categorising expenditure since they often omit civilian infrastructure projects like railways which had logistical importance and military use. It

24940-461: The traditional commitment to Bewegungskrieg (war of manoeuvre) and an army trained to fight ever-bigger battles. A decisive victory might no longer be possible but success would make a diplomatic settlement easier. Growth in the size and power of rival European armies increased the pessimism with which Moltke contemplated another war and on 14 May 1890 he gave a speech to the Reichstag , saying that

25112-525: The trajectory of the Schlieffen plan, but only up to the point where it was painfully obvious that he would have needed the army of the Schlieffen plan to proceed any further along these lines. Lacking the strength and support to advance across the lower Seine, his right wing became a positive liability, caught in an exposed position to the east of fortress Paris. Work began on Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918: Militärischen Operationen zu Lande (The World War [from] 1914 to 1918: Military Operations on Land) in 1919 in

25284-425: The war diaries, orders, plans, maps, situation reports and telegrams usually available to historians studying the wars of bureaucratic states, were destroyed. In his post-war writing, Delbrück held that the German General Staff had used the wrong war plan, rather than failed adequately to follow the right one. The Germans should have defended in the west and attacked in the east, following the plans drawn up by Moltke

25456-429: The war ended with the Armistice of 11 November 1918 . The Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 imposed settlements on the defeated powers, most notably the Treaty of Versailles , by which Germany lost significant territories, was disarmed, and was required to pay large war reparations to the Allies. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires redrew national boundaries and resulted in

25628-423: The war in the west would be won in August 1914, was implement it. The writers blamed Moltke for altering the plan to increase the force of the left wing at the expense of the right, which caused the failure to defeat decisively the French armies. By 1945, the official historians had also published two series of popular histories but in April, the Reichskriegsschule building in Potsdam was bombed and nearly all of

25800-413: The war involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa. On 6–7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorates of Togoland and Kamerun . On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa , led by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck , fought

25972-418: The west , which despite initial successes left the German Army exhausted and demoralised. A successful Allied counter-offensive from August 1918 caused a collapse of the German front line. By early November, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary had each signed armistices with the Allies, leaving Germany isolated. Facing a revolution at home , Kaiser Wilhelm   II abdicated on 9 November, and

26144-437: Was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against the French Third Republic . German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium rather than across the common border. After losing the First World War, German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers described

26316-432: Was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic. The causes of World War I included the rise of Germany and decline of the Ottoman Empire , which disturbed the long-standing balance of power in Europe, as well as economic competition between nations triggered by industrialisation and imperialism . Growing tensions between the great powers and in the Balkans reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when

26488-401: Was accepted on 18 April 1913. Copies of Plan XVII were issued to army commanders on 7 February 1914 and the final draft was ready on 1 May. The document was not a campaign plan but it contained a statement that the Germans were expected to concentrate the bulk of their army on the Franco-German border and might cross before French operations could begin. The instruction of the Commander in Chief

26660-429: Was appointed to the post of Chief of the Großer Generalstab (Great General Staff), the professional head of the Kaiserheer ( Deutsches Heer [German Army]). The post had lost influence to rival institutions in the German state because of the machinations of Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904), who had held the post from 1888 to 1891 and had tried to use his position as a political stepping stone. Schlieffen

26832-403: Was challenged by Britain's withdrawal into so-called splendid isolation , the decline of the Ottoman Empire , New Imperialism , and the rise of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck . Victory in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War allowed Bismarck to consolidate a German Empire . Post-1871, the primary aim of French policy was to avenge this defeat, but by the early 1890s, this had switched to

27004-474: Was challenging the strategic wisdom of the army. Delbrück had introduced Quellenkritik/Sachkritik (source criticism) developed by Leopold von Ranke , into the study of military history and attempted a reinterpretation of Vom Kriege (On War). Delbrück wrote that Clausewitz had intended to divide strategy into Vernichtungsstrategie (strategy of destruction) or Ermattungsstrategie (strategy of exhaustion) but had died in 1830 before he could revise

27176-474: Was editor of the Preußische Jahrbücher (Prussian Annals), author of Die Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte (The History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History; four volumes 1900–1920) and professor of modern history at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1895. General Staff historians and commentators like Friedrich von Bernhardi, Rudolph von Caemmerer, Max Jähns and Reinhold Koser, believed that Delbrück

27348-406: Was evacuated to prevent it falling into German hands. A levée en masse was promulgated on 2 November and by February 1871, the republican army had increased to 950,200 men. Despite inexperience, lack of training and a shortage of officers and artillery, the size of the new armies forced Moltke to divert large forces to confront them, while still besieging Paris , isolating French garrisons in

27520-400: Was feared a French invasion force could be too well established to be driven from Germany or at least inflict greater losses on the Germans, if not defeated sooner. The counter-offensive against France was also seen as the more important operation, since the French were less able to replace losses than Russia and it would result in a greater number of prisoners being taken. Aufmarsch II Ost

27692-507: Was for the contingency of an isolated Russo-German war, in which Austria-Hungary might support Germany. The plan assumed that France would be neutral at first and possibly attack Germany later. If France helped Russia then Britain might join in and if it did, Italy was expected to remain neutral. About 60 per cent of the German army would operate in the west and 40 per cent in the east. Russia would begin an offensive because of its larger army and in anticipation of French involvement but if not,

27864-403: Was more than the sum of the parts". In his war contingency plans from 1892 to 1906, Schlieffen faced the difficulty that the French could not be forced to fight a decisive battle quickly enough for German forces to be transferred to the east against the Imperial Russian Army to fight a war on two fronts , one-front-at-a-time. Driving out the French from their frontier fortifications would be

28036-654: Was refused. Early on the morning of 4   August, the Germans invaded, and Albert I of Belgium called for assistance under the Treaty of London . Britain sent Germany an ultimatum demanding they withdraw from Belgium; when this expired at midnight, without a response, the two empires were at war. Germany promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but those had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia. Beginning on 12 August,

28208-493: Was rejected because this was contrary to the tradition of Prussian war planning established by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder , in which military operations were considered to be inherently unpredictable. Mobilisation and deployment plans were essential but campaign plans were pointless; rather than attempting to dictate to subordinate commanders, the commander gave the intent of the operation and subordinates achieved it through Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). In writings from

28380-600: Was returning to Germany when it sank two British armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel in November 1914, before being virtually destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December. The SMS Dresden escaped with a few auxiliaries, but after the Battle of Más a Tierra , these too were either destroyed or interned. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany . This proved effective in cutting off vital supplies, though it violated accepted international law. Britain also mined international waters which closed off entire sections of

28552-485: Was seen as a safe choice, being junior, anonymous outside the General Staff and with few interests outside the army. Other governing institutions gained power at the expense of the General Staff and Schlieffen had no following in the army or state. The fragmented and antagonistic character of German state institutions made the development of a grand strategy most difficult, because no institutional body co-ordinated foreign, domestic and war policies. The General Staff planned in

28724-434: Was taken up by his successor, Moltke the Younger and became the concept of the main German war plan from 1906–1914. Most of the German army would assemble in the west and the main force would be on the right (northern) wing. An offensive in the north through Belgium and the Netherlands would lead to an invasion of France and a decisive victory. Even with the windfall of the Russian defeat in the Far East in 1905 and belief in

28896-447: Was that Whatever the circumstances, it is the Commander in Chief's intention to advance with all forces united to the attack of the German armies. The action of the French armies will be developed in two main operations: one, on the right in the country between the wooded district of the Vosges and the Moselle below Toul; the other, on the left, north of a line Verdun–Metz. The two operations will be closely connected by forces operating on

29068-586: Was the foundation of German foreign policy but in 1890, he was forced to retire by Wilhelm II . The latter was persuaded not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty by his new Chancellor , Leo von Caprivi . This gave France an opening to agree the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, which was then followed by the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Britain. The Triple Entente was completed by the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention . While not formal alliances, by settling long-standing colonial disputes in Asia and Africa, British support for France or Russia in any future conflict became

29240-490: Was their best option and the assumption became the theme of his analysis. In Aufmarsch I , Germany would have to attack to win such a war, which entailed all of the German army being deployed on the German–Belgian border to invade France through the southern Dutch province of Limburg , Belgium and Luxembourg . The deployment plan assumed that Royal Italian Army and Austro-Hungarian Army troops would defend Alsace-Lorraine ( Elsaß-Lothringen ). Helmuth von Moltke

29412-405: Was to advance into Belgium, to force a decisive battle with the French army, north of the fortifications on the Franco-German border. Plan XVII was an offensive into Alsace-Lorraine and southern Belgium. The French attack into Alsace-Lorraine resulted in worse losses than anticipated, because artillery–infantry co-operation that French military theory required, despite its embrace of the "spirit of

29584-430: Was writing war plans with provision for an incomplete victory, in which diplomats negotiated a peace, even if it meant a return to the Status quo ante bellum and in 1879, the deployment plan reflected pessimism over the possibility of a Franco-Russian alliance and progress made by the French fortification programme. Despite international developments and his doubts about Vernichtungsstrategie , Moltke retained

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