Warloans |
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(You will find the links to the various countries at the bottom of this page) |
Regardless of which alliance they belonged to in the war, all combatant nations faced certain common domestic challenges. For the primary combatants of Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Russia and Italy, it was the mobilization of the entire nation for "Total War". As many historians have correctly observed, World War One was the first major conflict in human history which required the mobilization of entire societies. The ongoing drain on manpower, national productivity, material resources and money was beyond the traditional ability of limited segments of society to provide. For all of the combatant nations World War One quickly ramped up to requirements for men and material that were beyond all expectations, and for which history had not prepared them. |
Three brief examples illustrate this point. At the onset of the war in August 1914, the entire French army had 4,000 artillery pieces. This was thought to be enough for victory. France was to build another 36,000 before the war ended. France's 2,500 automatic weapons were a mere token of the 315,000 machine guns to come. Germany, which had had a standing army of 850,000 men when she confidently went to war sure of "victory by Christmas", had 6,000,000 men in uniform by January 1916. France, with two-thirds the population had an equal number under arms. All of these soldiers had to be clothed, equipped, fed, transported and provided with weaponry and ammunition. All of this took money, and the financing of the war effort became a major concern and preoccupation of the government in each nation. |
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Allied Powers: | ||||
Central Powers: | ||||
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