Theaters of WWI

1. Theaters of WWI IB 20th Century Topics

2. What does a “theater” refer to when talking about a war? • the entire land, sea, and air area that may become or is directly involved in war operations

3. The Theaters involved in WWI are: • The Western Front • The Eastern Front • The Italian Front • Gallipoli • The War at Sea

4. The Western Front The map shows the geographical position of the Western Front stretching from Belgium in the north to Switzerland in the south. Each colored square represents 50,000 men. Yellow represents the German army, blue the French, red the British and orange the Belgian army.

5. The Western Front Info • The German army crossed the Belgian border on August 3rd 1914. • Britain and France declared war on Germany on August 4th. • The Germans pushed through Belgium, occupying Brussels before entering France. • The British and French armies marched to stop the German advance

6. Important Battles fought on the Western Front • Marne, September 1914; • first battle of Ypres, October - November 1914; • Verdun, February - December 1916; • Somme, July - November 1916; • Passchendale, July - November 1917; • Cambrai, November 1917; • 2nd Battle of Marne, July 1918

7. The Eastern Front The map shows the geographical location of the Eastern front stretching from Riga in the north to Czernowitz in the south. The orange line shows the position of the Eastern Front in 1915. Each colored square represents 50,000 men. Red represents the Russian army, yellow, German soldiers and blue Austro-Hungarian.

8. Eastern Front Info • The line of fighting on the Eastern side of Europe between Russia and Germany and Austria-Hungary is known as the Eastern Front. • Fighting began on the Eastern front when Russia invaded East Prussia on August 17, 1914. Germany immediately launched a counter-offensive and pushed Russia back

9. Eastern Front Info • This pattern of attack and counter-attack continued for the first two years of the war and meant that the Eastern Front changed position as land was captured and lost by both sides. • Battles fought along this front include – • Tannenberg, August 1914; • Masurian Lakes, September 1914; • Bolimov, January 1915; • Lake Naroch, March 1916; • Riga, September 1917.

10. Italian Front The Italians only managed to advance a short way into Austria (shown by the red line on the map The 1918 location of the Italian front is marked on the map in yellow.

11. Italian Front Info • The Italian front is the name given to the fighting that took place along the border between Italy and Austria • Prior to the outbreak of war in August 1914, Italy had tended to side with Germany and Austria-Hungary. • To begin with, Italy kept out of the war. However, tempted by offers of more land once the war was won, Italy entered the war in April 1915 on the side of the allies.

12. Gallipoli Front Info • The Gallipoli peninsula is located in the south of Turkey. • In 1915, the Allies decided to try to attack Germany by attacking her ally, Turkey. 

13. Gallipoli The map shows the front line. The blue line shows the allies position while the green shows the Turkish line.

14. Gallipoli Info • Allied soldiers, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, were sent to the Peninsula while British ships tried to force a way through the Dardanelles. • The entire mission was a failure. The allies lost more than 50,000 men but gained hardly any land.

15. The War at Sea • Before WWI, Germany and Britain were involved in a naval race • Britain had a long tradition of being the master of the seas and Germany knew that she was unlikely to win a naval war against Britain.

16. The War at Sea • Britain's main naval tactic was to keep German ships in German ports and to block supplies from reaching Germany. • Germany's main naval tactic was to post u-boats in the Atlantic ocean and to destroy ships taking supplies from America and other countries to Britain.

17. German U-boat sinking a British Ship