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Australia Australia entered the First World War as a federal dominion of the British Empire (Commonwealth of Australia), having achieved that status in 1901. Although the Australian colonies had sent troops to the Boer War between 1899 and 1902, there was no military tradition in the sense of a high-echelon military leadership and administration and a defense policy, and precious little national experience of war. Yet, by the end of the First World War, almost seven Australian cavalry and infantr…

Suez Canal A ship canal in Egypt, running between Port Said in the north and Suez in the south. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean, via the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. The canal was the target of Ottoman/German offensives launched from the Sinai Peninsula in 1915 and 1916, and from the beginning of 1917 the starting point for British operations against Palestine. It was of great strategic importance to the British Empire, as it was the shortest route between Britain and its colonies in East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. After the Ottoman Empire’s entry in…

Colored Troops German war propaganda described the nonwhite colonial troops employed by the Entente Powers in the First World War in general terms as “colored auxiliaries.” The very use of such units in Europe caused a considerable sensation. All in all, some 485,000 nonwhite soldiers from the French colonies and 160,000 from the British colonies fought in the ranks of the Entente Powers in the European theater. Important contingents came from Algeria (173,000), India (153,000), French West Africa…

Colonial War The war against the German colonies of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, led by the forces of Japan, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and their respective colonies. The spread of the war to the colonies was undertaken by Great Britain and France, primarily for strategic reasons. By occupying the German colonies, their respective ports would be closed to the German navy. Also, the German worldwide communications network, which depended upon the wireless stations erected there, would be dis…

Vandervort, Bruce - New Light on the East African Theater of the Great War: A Review Essay of English-Language Sources
Keywords: East Africa | Military organisation of combat | Published memoirs and biographies | Literature | Africa | The French and British Empires | Germany | Legacy | India | Portugal | Belgium
Abstract: The marine officers interest in the exploits of Colonel Lettow-Vorbeck reflects an earlier period, now superseded, at least as far as academic military history is concerned, in the historiography of the East Africa…

Poppy The poppy is a wildflower that commonly bloomed on the battlefields of the Western Front. A perennial that grows in disturbed soil, the poppy would be one of the first plants to sprout in the barren stretches of no man’s land. Because of its red color, the poppy became a symbol of the copious soldiers’ deaths and bloodshed during the war, especially in the British war and remembrance culture. The poppy likewise developed into a symbol of new life on the blood-soaked battlefields, of hope an…

India In August 1914, the Indian subcontinent was the most important pillar of the British Empire. After the start of the First World War India’s importance to the war effort was apparent in the considerable numbers of Indian soldiers employed on the Allied fronts in Europe, Africa, and Asia. By the end of 1918, some 1.5 million Indians had been mobilized for the war. Of these, almost 900,000 belonged to fighting units. More than 60,000 Indian soldiers died in the war and about the same number suffered wounds. It was originally envisaged that only restricted use should be made of I…

Carson, Sir Edward Henry (February 9, 1854, Dublin – October 22, 1935; from 1921 Baron Carson of Duncairn), Minster (Kent), Anglo-Irish politician (British First Lord of the Admiralty). As a Protestant, Carson was a lifelong committed advocate of the union of Ireland with Great Britain. He began his career as a barrister, and eventually became a leading English Conservative politician. Carson led the Unionists in the north of Ireland during the Ireland Crisis of 1912, supporting their threat to oppo…

Das, Santanu - Imperialism, Nationalism and the First World War in India
Keywords: empire | First World War | imperialism | India | Nationalism | nationalist leaders | sepoys | Western Front
ISFWWS-Keywords: India | The French and British Empires | Politics | Western Front | Experience of combat | Published memoirs and biographies
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between empire, India and the First World War, by examining both the responses to the war within India, and the experience of the sepoys in the Western Front. In …

German Southwest Africa German colony on the Atlantic coast in southern Africa between Angola to the north, South Africa to the south, and Botswana to the east; the modern Namibia. Placed under the protection of the German Reich by Bismarck in 1884, German Southwest Africa was the only German African colony suited for substantial European settlement. Accordingly, the influx of German emigrants was actively encouraged. The arbitrary attitude of the German administration towards the African population was marked by a high degree of cruelty. Thus in the war agai…

Ireland The great theme of British internal politics in the summer of 1914 was the Irish Crisis. Since 1910, the Asquith Liberal government had been supported in the British Parliament by the votes of Irish nationalists who sought home rule for Ireland. The prospect that the Third Home Rule Bill would be passed in 1914 was welcomed by Catholic and nationalist circles in the south of Ireland. The Protestant majority in the north, however, refused to countenance the extension of Irish autonomy to t…

Troop Strength The initial numbers of soldiers mobilized for immediate wartime service. The peacetime strength of the individual armies before 1914 provided the foundation for troop strength in the war. A cadre of commanders for reserve units and an attachment of reservists for these troop units were included in their mobilization plans. This would make it possible to raise units to wartime strength once the mobilization was begun. The troop strengths planned in the event of war, and the troop str…