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{{quote|''[[Harsher in Hindsight|Never again]]''.|'''Epitaph on a French War Memorial'''}}
Once upon a time, in 1918, a war between the richest and most powerful nations on earth ended. It was the biggest, most expensive, most bloody, most disruptive, most damaging and most traumatising war the world had ever seen. It left millions dead, maimed, shell-shocked, dispossessed, impoverished, starving and bitter. Victory brought relief more than it did elation or sorrow, and in the aftermath the world's great powers resolved to form a better world from the ashes of the old. This was a war that crushed attitudes, destroyed lives, brought down empires and in its conclusion sowed the seeds of further conflict and suffering. The extent to which it did all these things made the First World War a war the likes of which the world had never seen.... [[Foreshadowing|but the world was yet to see the last of this magnitude of conflict.]]
Formerly known as "The Great War", or as [[Tempting Fate|"The War to End All Wars"]], or
Generally seen in Anglospheric popular culture in one of two settings:
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The Austrians carried out their first invasion of Serbia and were unlucky (or stupid) enough to face the Serbian army outside of its own weapons range. The Austrians were quickly disposed of. War between Austria and Serbia, however, did not immediately equal World War One. What it did do was convince Russia that Germany had something planned. They figured rightly that Austria would not act without Germany's backing, but they mistook this as the possible first step in a larger plan for initiating a war of conquest. Just to be safe, Russia began to mobilize its reserves. It would be six months before they would be ready for war.
This is the point at which the Great War becomes inevitable. Germany has long anticipated
[As another aside, the Kaiser actually tried to abort the invasion of France, but due to the above
Germany's plan, as stated, was to quickly take out France before Russia could
[As an aside, Britain technically did not have to enter the war because of German encroachment on Belgian territory nor was this their primary concern. Britain had a massive global empire with colonies spread out all over the world. For the protection and administration of these colonies, they were dependent upon the good will of France and Russia, both of which owned territories neighboring their own. Besides this, the British economy was largely dependent on trade with the continent. Because of their bad relations with Germany and the economics of a united Europe, it was very much in their best interests that the continent remain divided in a balance of power. Lastly, Britain was in competition with Germany at this time for control of global trade. The two countries were locked in a naval arms race competing for the same markets. There was no room for them to be allies.]
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America, while Britain's ally, stayed out of the war at this point for a number of reasons including but not limited to: a strong isolationist fervor among the American populace, a worry over a possible repeat of the casualty numbers from [[The American Civil War|their Civil War]], a hesitancy over the loyalty of German immigrants, and a perceived lack of relevance (i.e, "What does it matter to us if Europe shoots itself up?") Despite this surface neutrality, however, America secretly shipped munitions and other supplies to Britain and the other Allies almost from day one. This didn't slip past Germany, which partially started unrestricted submarine warfare for this reason--the ''Lusitania'''s sinking, which so enraged Americans, was mainly done to take out the piles of munitions it was carrying to Europe. To anyone who cared to look, it was clear what side the U.S. was rooting for.
Romania entered the war on the Allied side in 1916 hoping to gain the largely ethnic Romanian territory of Transylvania<ref>The Allies are now believed to have just promised this to get Romania into war without intending to fulfill it; it took a ''lot'' of activism by Queen Marie and the Romanian delegation at Versailles to get the Allies to
Russia did very badly; their soldiers fought as bravely as any others, but the supply situation was absolutely horrendous from the outset, their "steamroller" tactics were ineffective and by 1917 they had been pushed back hundreds of miles and had lost all of Poland and Lithuania to the Germans (though in fairness they had some competent chaps like Brusilov, who in 1916 had gone back on the offensive and broken the back of the Austro-Hungarian army). Perhaps worse, the Russian economy collapsed; nearly all Russian pre-war overseas trade went through either the Baltic (controlled by Germany) or through the Dardanelles (controlled by the Ottoman Empire - opening a route to bring badly needed supplies to Russia was the most pressing reason for Gallipoli). The casualties, the shortages and the inflation of the war led to the overthrow of the Tsar. When the new government didn't end the war, the Bolsheviks took over and promptly did so- for a while.
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The British even had a mini-conflict all of their own in Ireland, where the Easter Rising took place. Ironically, the war had seemed to Britain like a golden opportunity to submerge Irish tensions (which were getting close to bursting over the issue of Home Rule)... but, like just about every other war aim, things went badly wrong.
The longest
A recent revisionist theory (or rather a once popular but long forgotten one) is (re-)emerging that the most decisive theatre was not on land at all but at sea. Pre-war British theory was based on the idea of the naval blockade, essentially that Britain could use its most powerful weapon (the largest navy in the world) to strangle Germany. Germany depended heavily on overseas trade, indeed she possessed the second largest merchant fleet in the world in 1914, and without vital materials, she could not go on. As it happened the British underestimated the German capacity to find alternative sources of material, but the basic idea was sound: food (a third of which had been imported before 1914) could be grown in Germany, but this was only a partial solution -- and a short term one as Germany began to run out of even these essentials and the country starved. German chemists invented ersatz bread, ersatz coffee, ersatz beverages, and many other ersatzes, but this wasn't a solution that made people happy. It has been argued that this (rather than any specific military defeat) is what broke the German will to continue the war. At the very least it led to the reckless gamble of unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought the US into the war.
The most famous naval battle of the war, the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, was a [[Pyrrhic Victory]] for Germany - their fleet was badly damaged and spent the rest of the war in home waters. Still, Britain suffered heavier losses in terms of ships and men, including two of their [[Glass Cannon]] Battlecruisers. This was arguably Germany's strategy - they knew Britain depended
Eventually, the German tactics of allowing their submarines to sink any ship they wanted, whoever it belonged to -- along with a botched plot to convince Mexico to invade the US<ref>a.k.a. the Zimmerman Telegram. History students may redeem this factoid for two (2) points extra credit on any WWI exam. Extra Special Bonus points for the Cuba Memorandum (German decision to attack American power in the Americas, signed in 1898) Manufacturer's coupon; no expiration date.</ref> -- annoyed the Americans so much that they got involved too (though volunteers had been joining the British, French, and Italian forces throughout). The Germans had one more big push in the Spring of 1918 to try and win before the Yanks arrived in numbers -- they broke through the lines into the open country beyond and it looked for a while as if they might actually do it. But in the end they ran out of steam and the French, newly-arrived Americans, British, Canadians and [[ANZACs]] (in order of size) pushed them right back across the lines and won the war. Just.
Pushing 1918 into the winner's circle for the title of Worst Year [[Tempting Fate|Ever]] (*cough*1945*cough*) was an influenza pandemic. The Spanish Flu (which actually originated in Fort Riley, Kansas) struck that fall, killing between ''fifty and a hundred million people'' (2.5-5% of the then global population) compared to the war's ten or fifteen million, but has largely been forgotten by history and fiction. The war actually helped its spread (troop transportation), and four years of malnutrition and stress probably hadn't strengthened anyone's immune system, but today it's thought that that flu strain was killed by inciting a cytokine storm (basically, [[Explosive Overclocking|your immune system goes berserk]]). Certainly, the 1918 flu was unusual in that it mostly killed healthy adults, as opposed to the more usual flu victims: the sick, the very young, and the very old. Also ''very'' unusual in that almost ''none'' of the stories or films set in the period even ''mention'' it--even contemporary fiction. ''[[Anne of Green Gables|Rilla of Ingleside]]'', by [[L. M. Montgomery]], chronicles the entire war without touching on it at all.
Four empires were toppled (Russian, German, Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman) and the winners took the opportunity in the Treaty of Versailles to redraw the map of Europe along what were supposed to be ethnic lines but in fact just stored up more problems for the future (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, to name the biggest). The treaty terms were really harsh on the Germans (including the Austrians, who voted to join Germany and were told to stuff it... until 1938, anyway) and the Hungarians (who lost two
[[Foreshadowing|Russia became the first Communist country late in this war]], although that was only because of
Interestingly, two of the most iconic German symbols of the war -- the spiked "Pickelhaube" helmet and the bright red Fokker Triplane -- were relatively short-lived. The Pickelhaube looked cool (sort of) but was useless for keeping the wearer's head safe so was quickly replaced by the end of 1915 by the Stahlhelm, "coal-scuttle" helmet, whose improved version became the symbol of the German forces in [[World War II]]. The Triplane was never that successful and quickly withdrawn after April 1917. The only red ones were flown by the [[Red Baron]], Manfred von Richthofen, and his younger brother Lothar -- the iconic image simply stuck.
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The war also ushered in modern espionage, to say nothing of modern spy fiction (although it had already had a leg up from Erskine Childer's ''The Riddle of the Sands'', which was actually semi-predicting the war at the beginning of the 20th century).
There were many future writers in the trenches: notably, [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]] and [[A. A. Milne|AA Milne]] served in the British infantry, while [[Ernest Hemingway]] and [[Walt Disney]] volunteered to serve as Red Cross ambulance drivers; on the other side, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein served in the Austrian artillery. One who did not survive his service was [[William Hope Hodgson]], author of ''[[The Night Land]]'' who was killed by a shell in 1918; the accomplished [[Dead Baby Comedy]] writer [[Saki (author)|Saki]] was also killed, shot by a German sniper after yelling at another soldier to put out his cigarette ([[Irony|he was discovered because of his yell]]). The famous German painter and founding member of "''The Blue Rider"'', [[Franz Marc]], was killed by a grenade at Verdun. And sadly, there was at least
Another [[Sarcasm Mode|semi-important character]] who fought in the trenches, [[Godwin's Law|some obscure painter]] [[From Nobody to Nightmare|named]] [[Adolf Hitler|Adolf something]], would eventually set off [[World War 2|the sequel]].
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{{tropelist|Tropes of WWI}}
* [[Ace Pilot]]: The very origin of the trope
** The [[Red Baron]]: Manfred von Richthofen, the best
** Billy Bishop: a Canadian flying ace. [[Berserk Button|Do not insult him in front of Canadians.]]
* [[Appropriated Title]]: The conflict was originally referred as ''The Great War'' or [[Tempting Fate|''The War to End All Wars'']] by its contemporaries and historians. It only got the name ''World War One'' after the sequel came out.
** The name was actually already being used by, or just after, its end — the more forward-looking military historians
{{quote|'''Ferdinand Foch:''' This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.}}
* [[Armored Coffins]]: Plane crews did not have parachutes. Some officers considered that the crew should not be allowed to leave the plane, as that would be cowardice. It was thought at the time that if a pilot had a parachute, he would jump from the plane when hit rather than trying to save the aircraft.
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** [[wikipedia:Paris Gun|The Paris Gun.]]
* [[Body Horror]]: Soldiers who survived the [http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/mask_pair4.jpg worst] [http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f149/89557d1251704696-world-war-1-facial-injuries-ww1pic3.jpg imaginable] [http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f149/89555d1251704681-world-war-1-facial-injuries-ww1pic2.jpg injuries] often had to exist in a state of [[A Fate Worse Than Death]] ''[[And I Must Scream|for the rest of their lives...]]'' If you were injured and disfigured young? Too bad for you...
* [[Break Out the Museum Piece]]: Rear line troops often got quite outdated equipment with black powder firearms seeing regular use.
** Mortars, invented in the 16th Century and otherwise discarded for some time after the 18th, saw a major renaissance in this war.
* [[Didn't See That Coming]]: The Germans were caught by surprise by the French using tear gas on their soldiers, and the Allies were even more surprised when the Germans deployed poison gas. Also, [[Tank Goodness|tanks]] was an absolute and terrifying surprise.
** The MAS (short for ''motobarca armata SVAN'', SVAN being the original manufacturer), the torpedo boats of the Italian Navy, were essentially speedboats with a torpedo strapped on either side
** [[Driven to Suicide]]: As a result of the above and the below
** Modern plastic surgery owes its [https://web.archive.org/web/20131103053830/http://www.plasticsurgery.org/about-asps/history-of-plastic-surgery.html beginnings] to this. The results were [http://bitchitoldyouigottaste.tumblr.com/post/11508919065/some-photos-of-wwi-veterans-with-their-tin-masks primitive]{{broken link}} by today's standards, but they were far better than nothing. In particular, big advancements were made in prosthetic eyes.
* [[Book Ends]]: The treaty that ended the war and the German Empire was signed in Versailles, the same place where the German Empire was unified and proclaimed after the [[Franco
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: Charles I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire protested against [[Imperial Germany]]'s plan to allow certain dissidents hiding in Switzerland safe passage into Russia in the hopes of driving them out of the war, with the Germans ultimately dismissing the warning. Said dissidents also happened to include [[Vladimir Lenin]], their return having [[Commie Land|drastic consequences]].
* [[Colonel Kilgore]]: A disturbingly large number of veterans threw themselves back into fighting almost as soon as the war ended - the [[Weimar Germany|Freikorps]] might be the most famous.
* [[Crying Wolf]]: A lot of people did not take reports of German rearmament or the [[World War Two]] Holocaust seriously because the last generation was jaded from exaggerated propaganda about the brutality of the enemy in this war.
** The Holocaust started well after World War II began. Also, in addition to a jaded populace, the British government knew that war with Germany would be, at best, a [[Pyrrhic Victory]] (They did lose their superpower status
* [[Dawn of an Era]]: A rather dark example, as the war and its aftermath, would decisively shape the modern world as we know it
* [[Disaster Dominoes]]: How that war was triggered. And arguably what the war's end [[World War II|eventually triggers]].
* [[Earth Is a Battlefield]]: Although it's mostly known for fighting in France, Belgium and Russia, there were battles all over the place. Technically, as they were Empires, the governments involved covered the entire earth, but the fighting was heavily concentrated on small fronts.
* [[The Empire]]: Several of them, and some of those empires ceased to exist because of this war.
* [[End of an Age]]: By the time the war was over, the Russian, German, Ottoman, and
* [[Feuding Families]]: Since virtually all the European monarchies were by now related, the whole war was technically this. Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas II, second cousins, called one another [http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Willy-Nicky_Telegrams "Willy" and "Nicky"] before things went too far downhill for diplomacy. Both were first cousins of King George V, then
** To drive this home, [http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/254/2/f/in_coburg_by_alixofhesse-d49klk6.png this picture] shows [[Queen Victoria]] at Coburg inn 1894 with her some of her extended family. In that picture, you have two future British Kings, as well as the last Kaiser (of Germany) and the last Czarina (of Russia), and those are just children and grandchildren.
* [[Flanderization]]: World War I more often than not [[Hollywood History|tends to be associated with trench warfare and other harrowing scenes from the Western Front]], sidelining the other aspects of the conflict.
* [[Foreshadowing]]:
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"The lights are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." - Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Minister, as the war began
"This is no peace, it is an armistice for twenty years." - French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, on the Treaty of Versailles. }}
** Continuing on the Foch quote; US general Pershing hated the idea of an Armistice
** A cartoon from the time of the Versailles treaty shows Lloyd-George saying to his fellow leaders: "Listen. Do you hear a child crying?" Said child is unseen in a corner weeping over a torn copy of the treaty. Virtually any boy born in England or France in 1918-1919 would have been conscripted in 1939.
* [[Friend or Foe]]: Everywhere, especially with artillery and between the Austro-Hungarians, who were divided by language.
* [[Gambit Pileup]]: The entire war was a textbook example of this; in some cases, the gears had been turning since the ''seventeenth century''.
* [[General Failure]]: On virtually every side and a large part of why the war was as horrible and bloody as it was. Generals, and most senior officers, of the time, often had their position from politics rather than competence, having never seen combat in their career, dreamed of glorious victories with lost men as statistics, and often hated other countries ''that were on the same side'' all while refusing to embrace modern tactics.
* [[Go-Karting with Bowser]]: On Christmas, 1914, forces in certain areas took a break from the war to go into No Man's Land and play soccer/football with each other and generally fraternize with the enemy. It was not universal, and ended up being stopped by the higher
* [[Gray and Gray Morality]]: Unlike [[World War Two|the sequel]], the good-versus-evil battle was far less obvious; as almost all the countries initially involved were motivated by a combination of greed, racism, and nationalistic fervor. While the Central Powers did things like [[Fascists' Bed Time|impose extremely nasty measures in the areas they occupied]] and [[Obligatory War Crime Scene|violated several agreements regarding the rules of war that they were party to]], as well as [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?|giving the Bolsheviks the leg up they needed to seize power]], and the use of genocide to "Germanify" or "Turkify" several regions under their control, [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|all of which ironically probably led to their defeat.]] The Allies were better, but they still were willing to launch air attacks against civilian targets (though not on the scale of the sequel), and blockade Germany and its allies even AFTER the war on the justification that the war was not over until Berlin signed the peace treaty and recalled its holdouts in some of the still-occupied regions, used poison gas, smuggled war materials in neutrally-flagged ships, and (in the case of the Russian government) indulged in anti-
* [[Harsher in Hindsight]]: Immediately after the war ended, many people were so disgusted by the scale of death and destruction that they declared that they had finally seen the worst humanity was capable of. [[World War Two|They]] [[Adolf Hitler|were]] [[Nazi Germany|wrong.]]
* [[Historical Hero Upgrade]]: Very rare in today's media, but in the immediate aftermath Hindenburg (who didn't do much) and Ludendorff (who lost) both made out that they were True German Heroes who had been betrayed by defeatists at home.
** [[Woodrow Wilson]], the President of the US and overseer of the Treaty of Versailles, was a fairly good-hearted man who genuinely tried to avert another such conflict and seriously attempted to make things better for countries... [[Values Dissonance|provided their populations were white]]. His racism and his purposeful creation of an imperfect schooling system (intended to create primarily staff for factories) are generally glossed over.
** Sir Douglas Haig, in one of his wiser moments,
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Many people who later became famous in a variety of fields were anonymous soldiers in [[World War
* [[Historical Villain Upgrade]]: German Emperor Wilhelm II, in most portrayals from Allied countries.
** By extension, Germany as a whole, and to a lesser extent Austria and Russia, seem to get this treatment. For example, referring to Germany's policy of creating dependent nations from the peoples of what had been the Russian empire as [[Those Wacky Nazis|"Lebensraum"]].
*** Though that one case was largely justified, as [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|those nations were largely viewed as placeholders under German colonization could take place.]]
** The Japanese got hit with this as well, mostly thanks to American views on the [[Yellow Peril|subject]], and the perception at the time by some Royal Navy Officers, most notably Admiral John Jellicoe, the commander of the British Grand Fleet, that the Japanese weren't contributing that much to the war effort, despite heavy involvement in secondary theaters (Tsingtao, anyone?) and in tasks like escorting troopships and convoys headed for Europe. The whole bit about [[Only in It For the Money|just being in it for the German Pacific colonies]] is a pretty hefty exaggeration, but not entirely a fabrication. They did also end up with pretty hefty rewards for relatively limited pain (about 415 dead and 907 wounded.)
* [[Hollywood Tactics]]: Heavily exaggerated by, ironically enough, Hollywood, but some pretty stupid things were done.
** Sadly enough, this was justified. Technology had far outstripped an understanding of tactics by then. The last big wars were fought against Napoleon, using formations and muzzle-loading muskets - or at the very least, artillery that was short-ranged and slow to load. Of the nations fighting ''this'' one, only one had had any prior experience with the levels of Dakka flying around: the
*** It's hardly true that the American Civil War was the most recent or relevant war by WWI. Later and more relevant military experience came from the British during the Boer War (1899-1902), and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Both wars involved much of the same technology that lead to the stalemate in the Great War-barbed wire and long-ranged, rapid
** The 1870 Franco-Prussian War was the main reason for France to declare war to Germany in 1914. Some of the tactics (and clothing, with red "shoot-me" pants) were still in use in the French army more than forty years later, much to
* [[Home by Christmas]]: The countries involved were confident that their soldiers would come home victoriously within months, a popular belief too; the soldiers on their way to the front were cheerfully saluted and joined by the citizens for a few miles. The scenario of an industrialized meat grinder war of attrition had not been experienced in Europe yet.
* [[Idiot Plot]]: The [[Idiot Ball]] gets passed back and forth between everyone. France and Britain
** [[Fridge Logic]] was introduced by the Mexican General Staff, which was forwarded the Zimmerman Note for analysis by President Carranza. They concluded that Germany was trying to incite Mexico to attack the United States [[Let's You and Him Fight|with no risk or sacrifice to Germany]]. Assurances of German financial support were meaningless, as the only country capable of selling Mexico enough arms to defeat the United States ''was the United States itself!'' And Germany's own wartime demands (to say nothing of the British blockade) ensured that the Germans could not provide Mexico with additional troops, weapons, or technical support. The Mexican army also concluded that the occupation would not be worth the trouble even if Mexico did manage to win
** Nothing beats the Italian general staff, though. When somebody sticks to the same Napoleonic Era
*** Less the Italian General Staff (who were
** Also
* [[Improvised Weapon]]: Early on in the war, the British were able to defeat the Germans using
* [[It Got Worse]]: After the war ended, the world was devastated by the Spanish Flu -- spread by the returning soldiers who had more or less created ideal pandemic conditions by staying in wet trenches with corpses everywhere -- which killed up to 100 million people (by comparison, four years of War killed perhaps 16 million people)
* [[Knight Templar Parent]]: Franz Joseph.
** If this is in reference to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then it should be pointed out that Franz Joseph didn't particularly like him. The declaration of war against Serbia was to take a
* [[Last of His Kind]]: Most of the last surviving veterans of the war have died in the past 15 years. As of 2011, nobody who saw active combat remains (the last, Claude Choules (British-born Australian, served in the RN and RAN) died May 5th, 2011). The last known survivor was Florence Green (British, last female veteran, died 7 Feb 2012). The last Canadian, Polish, Ukrainian and Austro-Hungarian veterans died only recently, only one to four years ago. Also, the last American veteran, Frank Buckles, died on February 27th, 2011.
* [[Memetic Badass]]: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of German forces in East Africa, intentionally built up a crazy reputation among both his enemies and his own troops
** He was also a [[Father to His Men]], insisting that his black troops be treated the same as his white troops. When Lettow-Vorbeck returned to
▲* [[Memetic Badass]]: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of German forces in East Africa, intentionally built up a crazy reputation among both his enemies and his own troops though such acts as personally reconoitering a battlefield on his bicycle. When he lost his glass eye and one of his Askaris (African troops) found it, returned it, and asked why he had dropped it, he replied "I left it there, to make sure that you would do your duty." By the end of the campaign, his enemies believed he was carrying his men on his back and going barefoot to conserve boots. After the war, he managed to get England to pay the retirement funds of his African troops. Let me repeat that: he managed to get England to pay for the retirement of the people who had ''shot at their soldiers''.
▲** He was also a [[Father to His Men]], insisting that his black troops be treated the same as his white troops. When Lettow-Vorbeck returned to east Africa in 1953, his surviving askaris assembled and serenaded him with their marching song.
** Lettow-Vorbeck was offered the ambassadorship to Great Britain by Hitler but, distrusting the Nazi party, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|told Hitler what he could do with the proposal]]. According to one interview:
{{quote|"I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself."
"That's right, but I don't think he put it that politely." }}
** Also, Canadian troops are the origin of the term Stormtrooper. The German forces called them that because whenever you saw Canadians in the line, you knew there was going to be an attack in the morning. It eventually reached the point where the command could draw German troops away from an area by supplying them with misinformation on the locations of Canadian units. There was also a nasty
* [[
* [[Modern Major-General]]: Far too many officers on every side tried to use nineteenth
* [[Mordor]]: What the most frequented frontlines looked like after years and years of bombardment and endless battles, notably on the Western Front. The battlefield near Paschendale looked particularly dreary in 1917 - a hellish, completely blasted-to-bits muddy wasteland.
** Tolkien even hinted at, years later, that the frontlines in Belgium and France (where he served as an army medic) gave him a lot of inspiration for Mordor. So, oddly, they sort of count as a [[Trope Codifier]].
*** In particular, the Dead Marshes crossed by Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in ''[[The Two Towers]]'' were directly inspired by things
* [[More Dakka]]: Probably set a record for extreme concentrations of firepower. As just one example, the Battle of the Somme saw the British fire 12,000 ''tons'' of artillery ordnance at the German lines. The Germans, largely sheltered in excellent German engineering bunkers, emerged to intercept the following infantry attack - and inflict ''60,000'' British casualties in one day with machine guns. ''Nineteen thousand people were shot to death in one day'' and that was just the start of the battle; it went on for five months and ultimately caused well over ''one million'' casualties.
** A detachment of the British Machine Gun Corps with 12 Vickers machine guns worked their way through a ''million'' rounds in 12 hours at High Wood.
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** After all was totted up, it's reckoned that one ton of explosives was spent killing each of the war's casualties.
** There is also the Paris Gun, an enormous cannon built by the Germans that could fire shells ''eighty miles'', so far and high that Coriolis Force affected the shots.
* [[Mundane Utility]]: One of the first
** [http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/04/04/the-winchester-machine-rifle-wwis-anti-balloon-assault-rifle/ Winchester prototyped an assault rifle], decades before the Germans made the STG44, for
* [[Multinational Team]]: Applies to most belligerent empires/states:
** British Empire and Commonwealth armies were assembled from a quarter of the globe. A flotilla of Japanese destroyers even served with the British Mediterranean fleet.
** France used troops from across its Empire (mostly from Senegal) and the famous [[Legion of Lost Souls|Foreign Legion]].
** The Austro-Hungarian Empire included not only Austria and Hungary but many other central European and Balkan regions, nations and city
** The Ottoman Empire included modern Turkey and all of the middle east from present-day Iraq to Egypt (although Egypt split off almost as soon as the war began--being semi-independent since the early 19th century and occupied by Britain since the 1880s).
** Russian Empire formed the first Latvian Riflemen brigades during this war. That came to bite them in the ass when the Riflemen supported Bolsheviks, giving the
* [[Neutral No Longer]]: Several examples. The British Empire after the invasion of neutral Belgium and the United States when Germany enacted unrestricted submarine warfare.
* [[Never My Fault]]: The Ottoman Empire's reaction to its crippling loss to the Russians after trying to invade in the dead of winter. Instead of blaming bad judgment on their part, they turned on the minorities within their empire for allegedly 'helping' the Russians.
** It is certain that a good number of the Armenians and Pontic Greeks on the campaign were spies for the Russians (though they were ironically outnumbered by the number of spies amongst the ethnic Turks the Russians had been cultivating since the
*** Ironically if the Ottoman army had invested more in helping the Germans fight rather than using much of their firearms and soldiers executing a [[Final Solution]] on their own citizens they may have stood more of a chance of winning. But, since they'd been massacring their Christian population on and off since the
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: The Treaty of Versailles. Especially the debate in the United States over its ratification. Anti-Treaty Republicans wanted to compromise, especially in
** There's also a far-reaching incident that happened with Wilson while he was eating at a restaurant. A Vietnamese waiter came up to him and wanted to talk to him about French Indochina and the possibility of its independence from France. Wilson brushed him off. The waiter's name? [[wikipedia:Ho Chi Minh|Ho Chi Minh]].
** The first recorded cases of Spanish flu were among soldiers in ''Kansas''. This makes it likely that American soldiers sent to the front lines were the ones who unknowingly carried it over to Europe, [[Typhoid Mary]] style.
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** Nice job helping Lenin get back to Russia, allowing a Communist takeover which would beat you in [[World War Two]] and dooming the world to half a century of [[Cold War]], Germany.
** Nice job training German soldiers in secret after the war, Russia.
* [[Obvious Beta]]: World War I was a testing ground for many military technologies that would see much greater use in later wars:
** Tanks were born in this conflict, at least in the earliest form that can be associated with the modern use of the term. The tactics for their use would only become usable in WW2.
** Aircraft carriers got their first use in this war, albeit in a very limited role. Actual profound usage in combat would be in WW2.
** Airplanes had most of their basic tactics honed and refined in this war, with later wars expanding on them greatly.
** Mass deployment of poison gas was pioneered in this war. While discouraged in later wars due to the horrific effects they had as applied to all sides in WWI, further refinements and enhancements to their use and protection from the same would develop based on their debut in WWI.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Charles I of Austria-Hungary, who became [[The Emperor|Emperor]] right in the middle of a war he didn't want to fight. He proposed a "peace without recriminations" in which all parties would simply lay down their weapons and go home to rebuild their shattered countries. The Allies simply scoffed at the proposal, the Germans were furious about Charles' plan to "abandon" them. Charles was then [[It Got Worse|deposed]] at the end of the war. He tried to [[Rightful King Returns|regain the Hungarian throne]], but the Allies would never have allowed it, and the [[Regent for Life|sitting ruler]] of Hungary didn't want trouble from them, even though it meant breaking his former oaths of loyalty to Charles. In the end, Charles died [[Impoverished Patrician|in poverty]], [[The Exile|exiled to]] the Portuguese island of Madeira. For everything he had done, he was Beatified by [[The Pope|Pope John Paul II]], and he will probably be [[Patron Saint|Canonised a saint]] before long.
{{quote|'''Anatole France:''' ''Emperor Karl is the only decent man to come out of the war in a leadership position, yet he was a saint and no one listened to him. He sincerely wanted peace, and therefore was despised by the whole world. It was a wonderful chance that was lost.''}}
** Benedict XV
* [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]: In September 1914 the British auxiliary cruiser Carmania, disguised as the German liner Cap Trafalgar, encountered the German auxiliary cruiser Cap Trafalgar, which was disguised as the British liner Carmania. [[wikipedia:Battle of Trindade|Oops]].
* [[Patriotic Fervour]]: Everyone. At least, at the start. It became a big factor at the end, too, with national independence movements springing up all over the place. One example over-looked by historians in the latter 20th Century but now starting to be studied more because of [[wikipedia:2010%E2%80%932011 Middle East and North Africa protests|recent events]] is now starting to be looked at a little more closely, what is being referred to is the series of the uprising against the collapsing Ottoman Empire known as the [[wikipedia:Arab Revolt|Arab Revolt]] which saw the almost-independence of most of the Middle-East before the Allied Powers swept in and started mandating and redrawing the map of the middle east with very far-reaching consequences.
** With Anti-German sentiment running high in the US, many things were re-named to disassociate them from German origins: Sauerkraut -> "Liberty Cabbage", Dachshunds -> "Liberty Hounds", German Measles -> ''"Liberty Measles"'', Frankfurters -> "Hot Dogs"
*** Only ''one'' of those terms gained lasting traction in common usage. [[Captain Obvious|See if you can guess which one]].
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** Berlin, Ontario->Kitchener.
*** Subverted in that the residents of Berlin/Kitchener never really wanted the name changed because the majority of them were ethnically German; the movement to rename the city came from people outside Berlin [[With Us or Against Us|who thought the pacifist Mennonite majority of the city were being disloyal]]. In the end, [[Executive Meddling]] won out.
** Averted in Berlin, New Hampshire. They kept the name perhaps because the local
** Even in Russia, Sankt Petersburg > Petrograd (> Leningrad, post
** In France, too: A little town named Allemagne (Germany) was renamed Fleury-sur-Orne.
** It didn't apply just to places or items, many immigrants were forced to change their names to more "American" sounding ones.
*** "Schmidt" became "Smith", "Schneider" became "Snider" (why not "Taylor"? That's what it means, after all), "Huber" became "Hoover"...
* [[Pretext for War]]: The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Despite the mediator's
* [[Rightful King Returns]]: Defied at the end of the war. The Allied powers and "Little Entente" made a point to ensure that the Habsburgs never regained power.
* [[Red Scare]]: The Trope codifier, as it saw the [[Red October|Bolsheviks came to power in Russia]] [[Old Shame|with the help of the Germans despite Austro-Hungarian objections]], who proceeded to break away from the Allies and try to confiscate various Allied military supplies still in Russia, which eventually ballooned into all out civil war, a Western intervention, and several foreign invasions that left a great deal of animosity between the Soviets and most of the rest of the World and sharp internal divisions and suspicion of the domestic Left throughout the West.
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* [[Russian Guy Suffers Most]]: They had the largest death toll, followed by France and Austria-Hungary.
** Debateable: Germany suffered the largest ''confirmed'' death toll at around 2 million. Russian figures may have been higher, but no one is sure. If you include the immediately subsequent Russian civil war, then this trope is played straight.
*** Problem with Russia is how
** Less debatable is the Russian military equipment being pretty sub-par. Malnourished and ill
* [[Schizo-Tech]]: The introduction of poison gas, tanks, and surveillance aircraft (as well as one of the first campaigns of aerial assault led by [[Colonel Badass|Lt. Commander Peter Strasser]]) mixed with distinctly old-world attitudes and aesthetics.
* [[Seductive Spy]]: The folklore that arose around former [[Trope Namer]] [[Mata Hari]] essentially codified the trope during this war.
* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Practically ''every common footsoldier'' (though not only them). [[Trope Namer|The war itself was the actual originator of the term "shell shock"]].
* [[Shotguns Are Just Better]]: So much so that the Germans decided that anybody captured with one would be executed on the spot.
* [[Shot At Dawn]]: Not as common as people think. Most of the British soldiers killed were actually shot for things like murder and many sentences were commuted.
** Other armies such as the Italian army were a different story, however. Around 6% of the ranks were tried by Court Martial and shot.
* [[A Simple Plan]]: The Schlieffen Plan. Many say it could never actually have worked whatever happened, but even despite one thing going wrong after another, the Germans did get uncomfortably close to Paris. By extension, the initial "Charge-Bangabang-Tea+ Crumpets-VICTORY!" war
** To summarize, the Schlieffen Plan was Germany's grand strategy for fighting a two-front war with both France and Russia. The idea was to deploy ~90% of the German army against France, with projections of defeating them utterly within six to eight weeks, and then redeploy the whole shebang by rail to deal with the Russians. Against France, Germany was divided into two separate flanks: The left flank would be used as [[Schmuck Bait]] to lure the French forces into the Rhineland and parts of Germany proper, while the stronger right flank would wrap around through Belgium and the Netherlands and envelop the French from the flanks, leaving the bulk of the French army surrounded and a strong German force a hop, skip, and jump away from Paris. Unfortunately for the Germans, after Schlieffen's retirement, he was replaced by [[General Failure|Field Marshal von Moltke]], who had issues with violating Dutch neutrality and with allowing France to occupy even a sliver of Germany, despite the strategic reasons for doing so. He altered the plan so as not to enter the Netherlands and redeployed over 250,000 men from the right flank to reinforce the left and the eastern front, wanting to beat the French in a stand-up fight with a minimum of detours through Belgium. Without those extra men, the German advance through Belgium and into France bogged down, leaving Germany to fight a war against France, a Belgian resistance force, the British expeditionary unit, and eventually Russia, exactly the situation the Schlieffen Plan was designed to prevent.
*** Schlieffen's plan was so precise that it even dictated the railroad timetables involved in moving troops in German, Belgium, and France. The 6-8 weeks figure comes from an intense study of the Russian railway system.
** The original plan that eventually led to Gallipoli was based on the (not ''entirely'' unreasonable) idea that the Ottoman Empire was so shaky that a force of battleships shelling Constantinople would knock the Turks out of the war. For a variety of reasons things didn't work out, but some military historians consider that the naval campaign at least had some merit.
*** Gallipoli--the Dardanelles operation, that is--failed because of terrible leadership from the generals on the scene. The idea was sound.
* [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]]: the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires definitely shared this fate at the war's end. In terms of individual lives, as many as 65 million cases, depending upon whether you include things like the Spanish Flu, the famine and civil war in Russia, the Armenian genocide, and other incidents directly or proximately caused by the war.
* [[Tank Goodness]]: The first in history.
* [[Tear Jerker]]: Many heart-warming poems and gut-wrenching stories were written, but perhaps the greatest tearjerker of the entire conflict is the reality of millions of men, no matter their nationality, going into battle perfectly aware they were going to die. To make it even more tragic, the war itself resulted in little more than setting up an ''even worse'' world war.
* [[Unskilled but Strong]]: Many new technologies of the war didn't have developed tactics beyond straight-forward attacking until late war, but were still amazingly effective with unsubtle, direct use. Tank tactics in particular were underdeveloped, but that did little to stop their effectiveness.
* [[Ur Example]]: Some historians credit the [[Seven Years' War]] from 1756 to 1763 as the real first World War, because of its global nature. World War I may then just be the [[Trope Codifier]].
* [[War Is Hell]]: This war was so horrible that everyone involved decided to never engage in war again.
* [[Warrior Poet]]: Many many poets and writers served in the war. Siegfried Sassoon, JRR Tolkien, and John McCrae are only a few examples.
** Gabriele D'Annunzio is the most ''in''famous due his
* [[The War to End All Wars]]: An example where it didn't work at all. Also, the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[We Have Reserves]]: The war, unfortunately, was made of this trope.
* [[Western Terrorists]]: Gavrilo Princip
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: The [[Red Baron]] and Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck were highly respected by their enemies.
** Also Karl von Müller and the crew of the German commerce raider SMS ''Emden'',
* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: Lots of this, in many forms. Particularly once the Russian Civil War began, there was some romanticization of the War as a "global revolution." The 19th Century was very much the age of revolutions, with many nationalist and (small-r) republican movements springing up around the world. Colonial empires were slowly being dismantled from within, territories breaking away, becoming independent nations, and spreading democracy. From that perspective, the Great War was seen as the death throes of Imperialism, where the empires that dominated the world would fade away and be replaced by a more equitable, more modern form of government. Yeah...not exactly...
** Charles I of Austria-Hungary can arguably be described as the right person at the worst possible time. As all his efforts to save the Habsburg domains and end the war ultimately proved to be either for naught or too little, too late.
* [[You Fail Economics Forever]]: Germany's strategy for paying for the war, instead of increasing wartime taxes and other such things that the other countries did? Just print money. This left the Germans with a useless form of currency, with the life savings of a retired citizen barely enough to cover a table. People were ''using marks as fuel for their fires or wallpaper'' because there was nothing else they could do with them.
* [[Young Future Famous People]]: Due to conscription, you generally couldn't throw a brick in the trenches without hitting someone who would grow up to be an important writer/actor/scientist/future political leader etc. (Most notably [[Adolf Hitler]]).
* [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters]]: Many
* [[Zerg Rush]] - A commonly used strategy, usually leading to a resounding victory - for the defenders.
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* 1940s war movie ''The Fighting 69th'' starring James Cagney.
* The [[Time Travel]] plot of Terry Gilliam's ''[[12 Monkeys]]'' has several short scenes set on the Western front, and the war is also referenced by the [[Present Day Past]] characters in the movie {{spoiler|because [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|one of the time travellers apparently got stuck there and was acting suspiciously for that era.]] }}
* There's a little known 2004 independent film about American soldiers on the western front in 1918, called ''[
* ''Oh! What A Lovely War''.
* ''A Bear Named Winnie'', chronicling the life of the original Winnipeg/Winnie the black bear, the bear that eventually inspired A. A. Milne to create [[Winnie the Pooh]].
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* ''The Bloody Red Baron'' (1995), part of the ''[[Anno Dracula]]'' series by [[Kim Newman]], takes this war and introduces vampires. Specifically, [[Dracula]] leading the German war effort.
* [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''Great War'' [[Alternate History]] trilogy (1998-2000, part of his larger ''[[Timeline-191]]'' series) pits the United States of America, Germany and Austria-Hungary against Britain, France, and the Confederate States of America. Among other differences, the October Revolution fails, and Russia is still a monarchy after the war. For that matter, so are Germany, Austria, and Mexico.
** In recent years, Turtledove has also penned a [[Young Adult]] [[Alternate History]] series called ''Crosstime Traffic''. Its second novel, ''Curious Notions'' (2004), is set in the late 21. century of a world where the Central Powers managed to succesfully pull off the the Schlieffen Plan and eventually won [[World War
* Though it doesn't take place during the war, in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' (2000-) it turns out that World War One was actually arranged by a very, ''very'' powerful necromancer by the name of Kemmler who apparently spent two centuries quietly setting everything up. Kemmler was implied to be a ''very'' [[Big Bad]], who took several attempts to kill [[Killed Off for Real|before it finally stuck]] - and that took the combined forces of the [[Big Good|White Council]] to pull off.
* The [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel "Casualties of War"(2000) is set in England during the closing months of the war.
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* ''[[Blackadder]] Goes Forth'': A rare comedy set here, although it was far darker than earlier series. Well-known for an [[Tear Jerker|extremely touching]] and [[Downer Ending|sad finale]].
* Season four of ''[[Upstairs, Downstairs]]''. If [[Blackadder|Blackadder's Lt. George]] is the ''comedy'' version of what happens when an [[Upper Class Twit]] turns Tommie, [[Upstairs, Downstairs|James Bellamy]] is the ''drama'' version. It is not easy for him.
* An episode of ''[[Fantasy Island]]'' featured [[Don Adams]] (in complete Maxwell Smart mode) as a bumbling school teacher who wants to visit WWI and ends up fighting the [[Red
* A large portion of the immediate [[Backstory]] to ''[[Carnivale]]'' is set in the trenches, and it's [[Aborted Arc|heavily implied]] that the [[Balance Between Good and Evil|machinations]] of the [[Family Feud|two Avatara]] were major factors in causing this and other conflicts.
* While most of the episode is set a year before, the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Family of Blood" (based on the [[Virgin New Adventures]] novel ''Human Nature'') features two of the students from the episode's school fighting and surviving in the trenches of the war.
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* ''Birdsong'' An adaptation of the book by Sebastian Faulks.
* Part of [[Downton Abbey]] is set in the backdrop of the war, along with the various social upheavals this causes.
== Magazines ==
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* [http://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?id=2924〈=en The Soldier's Sweetheart] by Jimmie Rodgers
* ''Christmas In The Trenches'', a song by John [[Mc Cutcheon]], based on the true stories of truces between different groups of opposing entrenched forces on the Western Front on Christmas Day 1914, with the soldiers singing carols, exchanging gifts, and playing soccer in No Man's Land. (This would also inspire the film ''Joyeux Noel'', above.) (Though later years would see similar truces, due to high command on both sides being upset when they heard it, they were not nearly so widespread as before.)
* Along with their invoked usage of [[Music to Invade Poland To]] that centers on [[World War Two]], the [[Industrial Metal]] band ''Hanzel und Gretyl'' has done [[World War
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'''Special note :''' One weird thing about the representation of WWI in games is that... well, [[The Greatest History Never Told|there aren't many WWI titles in general]], which is particularly strange when compared with the more numerous representations in other media. Some gamers and game critics blame this on the somewhat more static nature of the war or the ignorance of developers and most gamers, [[Did Not Do the Research|who often assume]] that "[[Hollywood History|WWI = only muddy and unmoving Western Front]]". Though [[First-Person Shooter|First Person Shooters]] in a WWI setting wouldn't probably prove popular, there still is room for things like [[Stealth Based Game|Stealth Based Games]]. But even these are conspicuously absent...
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' has a chapter that takes place in a church-turned-hospital in 1916 France. The premise of the chapter is that the Ancients and Pious Augustus instigated the war so the amount of people who died in the war would inevitably speed up the unleashing of the respective ancient (and keep the artifact guardian in check, apparently consuming far more than can be provided).
* [[RTS]] [[wikipedia:Historyline|History line: 1914-1918]] is one of the few dedicated [[World War
* ''Snoopy Vs the Red Baron'' takes place here, although the technology is... not quite the same.
* In fact, combat flight sims are likely the most common type of game based on this war. You can find several examples on the [[Simulation Game]] page.
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* ''[[Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun]]'' features World War One technology in its later stages and the possibility to spark the war, [[Alternate History|create an alternate version of it... or avert it altogether]].
* Many pan-historical [[RTS]] games, like ''[[Rise of Nations]]'' or the ''[[Empire Earth]]'' series, have a historical era based on WWI, complete with typical military units of the period.
* The ''[[Iron Grip]]'' series, true to its [[Schizo-Tech]] [[Punk Punk]] feel, borrows a lot of inspiration from this era as well. The games can be seen as a [[Low Fantasy]] [[Recycled in Space|retelling]] of some aspects of the war, coating the industrial war-torn grimness of the frontlines with a [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Steampunk]] and [[
* The chapter "The War to End All Wars..." in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' is set in Amiens, France during this conflict.
* ''[[Clive Barker's Undying]]'' is set immediately after the war. The protagonist, Patrick Galloway, is a veteran from one of the Irish regiments on the western front.
* The ''[[Half Life]] 2'' mod ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140622155921/http://www.ww1-source.net/ W W I Source]''.
* [[The Last Express]], the game happened some months after the Archduke was assassinated. But most of the murder mystery happens on board the Orient Express and involves your friend.
* The
* [[Wings (video game)|Wings]]
* In the ''[[Command & Conquer: Tiberium]]'' series, [[Biblical Bad Guy|Kane]]'s [[State Sec|Black Hand]] is suggested to be the very same organization that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
* ''[[Verdun]]'', a first-person MMO shooter in the style of the ''[[Battlefield]]'' games is not only named after the infamous Battle of Verdun but also aims to be as authentic and realistic to the time period. [[War Is Hell]] [[Scenery Gorn|and all]].
* The upcoming ''[[Battlefield]] 1'' is stated to be set during the Great War. Covering not only the Western Front but every known theatre of the conflict, which is in part meant to debunk the usual stereotypes of the era.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* Various alternate WWI scenarios, timelines and stories created by the members of [[
** The ''[[Swarm On the Somme]]'' series. A [[World War
** ''[[No
** ''[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=83811 Shadow of Fashoda]'' features an alternate timeline of the pre-war years.
* Speaking of [[Alternate History]], ''[[Covert Front]]'' has WWI taking place in 1904, with the protagonist conducting investigations in the midst of the conflict.
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* ''[[Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines]]''.
* The final episode of ''[[The Flintstones]]'' centered around a flashback telling an adventure that [[Identical Grandson|Fred's grandfather]] had in "Stone World War One."
* ''[[Looney Tunes]]'':
* One of the final classic-era ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts, 1964's "Dumb Patrol," features Bugs as a flying ace fighting German pilot Yosemite Sam.▼
** One of the earliest of the franchise, "Bosko the Doughboy", is set in the trenches.
▲** One of the final classic-era
----
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[[Category:The Twentieth Century]]
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