The First World War: who fought with whom? Goals of the belligerents. With whom was Russia at war?

The First World War: who fought with whom? Now this question is likely to puzzle many townsfolk. But the Great War, as it was called in the world before 1939, claimed more than 20 million lives and changed the course of history forever. For four bloody years, the empires collapsed, the peoples disappeared, alliances were made. Therefore, to know about it is necessary at least for the purposes of general development.

The reasons for the outbreak of war

By the beginning of the 19th century, the crisis in Europe was obvious to all major powers. Many historians and analysts cite various populist reasons for the outbreak of the First World War. Whoever fought before whom, what nations were fraternal with each other and so on - all this had practically no significance for most countries. The goals of the belligerent powers in the First World War were different, but the main reason was the desire of big capital to spread its influence and gain new markets.

First of all, it is worth considering the desire of Germany, since it was she who became the aggressor and actually unleashed a war. But it should not be considered that only the German Empire wanted war, and the rest of the countries did not prepare plans for an attack and just defended themselves.

Goals of Germany

By the beginning of the 20th century, Germany continued to develop rapidly. The Empire had a good army, modern types of weapons, a powerful economy. The main problem was that the unification of the German lands under a single flag was possible only in the middle of the 19th century. It was then that the Germans became an important player on the world stage. But by the time of the emergence of Germany as a great power, the period of active colonization had already been missed. England, France, Russia and other countries had many colonies. They opened a good sales market for the capital of these countries, allowed to have cheap labor, an abundance of food and specific goods. Germany did not have this. Commodity overproduction has led to stagnation. The population growth and the limited areas of their resettlement caused a food shortage. Then the German leadership decided to move away from the idea of being a member of the commonwealth of countries, having a secondary voice. Somewhere towards the end of the 19th century, political doctrines were aimed at building the German Empire as the world's leading power. And the only way to this is war.

The year 1914. The First World War: with whom did they fight?

Other countries thought the same way. The capitalists pushed the governments of all major states to expansion. Russia first of all wanted to unite under its banner as many Slavic lands as possible, especially in the Balkans, especially since the local population was loyal to such patronage.

An important role played by Turkey. Leading world players were closely watching the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and were waiting for the moment to bite off a piece from this giant. Crisis and expectation were felt all over Europe. There was a series of bloody wars in the territory of modern Yugoslavia, followed by the First World War. Whoever fought with whom in the Balkans, sometimes did not remember the local residents of the South Slavic countries themselves. The capitalists drove the soldiers ahead, changing allies depending on the benefits. It was already clear that, most likely, something more ambitious than a local conflict would occur in the Balkans. So it happened. At the end of June, Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Ferdinand. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire used this event as an excuse for declaring war.

Expectations of the parties

The warring countries of the First World War did not think what the conflict would result in. If you study in detail the plans of the parties, it is clearly seen that each was going to win because of a rapid offensive. The fighting took no more than a few months. This was due, among other things, to the fact that previously there were no such precedents in history, when practically all the powers participate in the war.

World War I: who fought against whom?

On the eve of 1914, two alliances were concluded: the Entente and the Triple. The first included Russia, Britain, France. In the second - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy. The smaller countries united around one of these alliances when the First World War began. With whom was Russia at war? With Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Albania. And also a number of armed formations of other countries.

After the Balkan crisis in Europe, two main theaters of war were formed - the Western and the Eastern. Also, military operations were conducted in Transcaucasia and in various colonies in the Middle East and Africa. It is difficult to list all the conflicts that the First World War has engendered. Whoever fought with whom depended on belonging to a certain union and territorial claims. For example, France has long dreamed of recovering lost Alsace and Lorraine. And Turkey is a land in Armenia.

For the Russian Empire, war was most costly. And not only economically. On the fronts, the Russian troops suffered the greatest losses.

This was one of the reasons for the beginning of the October Revolution, as a result of which a socialist state was formed. The people simply did not understand why the mobilized by the thousands went to the West, and few came back.
Intense was mainly only the first year of the war. The following were characterized by positional struggle. Many kilometers of trenches were dug, numerous countless defenses were erected.

The atmosphere of positional permanent war is very well described in Remarque's book "On the Western Front without Change." It was in the trenches that the lives of soldiers were grinded, and the economies of the countries worked exclusively for war, reducing the cost of all other institutions. 11 million peaceful lives took the First World War. Who fought with whom? The answer to this question can only be one: the capitalists with the capitalists.