Glossary
(149)Terms, abbreviations and names that often appear in the chronicle, from the Polish Legions to no man's land.
A
- Act of 5 NovemberThe proclamation by the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary of 5 November 1916 announcing a Kingdom of Poland on lands taken from Russia, with no king, government or borders, chiefly to win Polish recruits.
- AdmiraltyThe British department that ran the Royal Navy, at once a ministry and the fleet's high command. It was headed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, a politician, and the First Sea Lord, the navy's professional chief.
- Airship (Zeppelin)A powered, steerable lighter-than-air craft lifted by hydrogen. German airships, known as Zeppelins, were used for reconnaissance and bombing, including raids on England and Paris.
- All-Russian Constituent AssemblyThe Russian parliament known as the Constituent, elected in the autumn of 1917 to give the state its constitution. It met only once, on 18 January 1918, and the Bolsheviks dissolved it the next day.
- ANZACAustralian and New Zealand Army CorpsThe Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, formed in Egypt in December 1914 under General William Birdwood; it landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Anzacs later meant all soldiers of both countries.
- Armenian genocideThe Armenian genocide: the extermination of the Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk government in 1915–1916, by massacre and deportation to the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts. About 600,000 to over a million died.
- ArmisticeAn agreement between belligerents to suspend hostilities, generally or on part of the front, ahead of a peace treaty. The war's best-known armistice was signed at Compiègne on 11 November 1918.
- Armoured carAn armoured wheeled vehicle, usually armed with a machine gun in a revolving turret. Of little use among the trenches of the First World War, it proved itself where the front was fluid, above all in the desert.
- Armoured cruiserA large cruiser with an armoured belt along its sides, built from the 1870s to protect trade and to scout. Outclassed by the battlecruiser by 1914, it suffered heavy losses in the war.
- Armoured trainA train of an armoured locomotive and wagons, armed with guns and machine guns. In the First World War it was used mainly on the Eastern Front and in Romania, and on a large scale in the Russian Civil War.
- Army groupA grouping of several armies under one command, responsible for a long stretch of front. Germany and France formed army groups from 1914–1915; in the Russian army the equivalent was the front.
- Army of the OrientThe French army (Armée d'Orient) sent to Salonika in autumn 1915, the core of the Entente's multinational forces on the Macedonian front. Its offensive in September 1918 knocked Bulgaria out of the war.
- AskarisAfrican soldiers of the colonial forces, above all the German Schutztruppe and the British King's African Rifles. In East Africa they formed the core of both armies throughout the war.
- Auxiliary cruiserA merchant ship, usually a fast passenger liner, armed and taken into a navy. Britain used them for blockade patrols and escort work, Germany above all as raiders on the trade routes.
B
- Balfour DeclarationBritish Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour's letter to Lord Rothschild of 2 November 1917, in which the government backed the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
- Balkan WarsTwo wars of 1912–1913: the Balkan League states took almost all of Turkey's European lands, and then Bulgaria lost a war with its former allies over Macedonia. They left tensions that exploded in 1914.
- Barbed wireBelts of barbed wire on stakes in front of the trenches, which held up attacking infantry under the defenders' fire. Cutting them was a main task of the artillery and, from 1916, of tanks.
- BarrageArtillery fire laid along a line to stop the enemy or shield one's own infantry. A creeping barrage moved forward in steps, to a timetable, just ahead of the attacking troops.
- Battalions of deathVolunteer shock units of the Russian army in 1917, some of them made up of women, meant to carry a demoralised army into battle. The best known was Maria Bochkareva's women's battalion of death.
- BattlecruiserA large warship armed with guns close to a battleship's, but faster and more lightly armoured. Britain built the first in 1908; in the First World War they served mainly in the British and German navies.
- Bayonne menA Polish volunteer company in the French Foreign Legion, named after Bayonne, where it trained from August 1914. It was bled white in the attack near Arras on 9 May 1915.
- BezhenstvoBezhenstvo (Russian for "refugeedom"): the mass flight and removal of people from Russia's western provinces into the interior in the summer of 1915, during the Russian retreat. Millions were affected, mostly Orthodox.
- Big BerthaA German 42 cm siege mortar built by Krupp. In 1914 it smashed the forts of Liège, Namur, Maubeuge and Antwerp, and in 1915 it helped take Russian fortresses such as Kovno and Novogeorgievsk.
- Blue ArmyThe Polish Army in France, created by a decree of the French President on 4 June 1917. Named after the colour of its French uniforms, it was commanded from October 1918 by General Józef Haller.
- BolsheviksThe radical faction of Russian Social Democracy led by Lenin, a separate party from 1912. In November 1917 it overthrew the Provisional Government and seized power in Russia.
- BomberAn aircraft built to drop bombs on targets behind the front and in the rear. In the First World War heavy bombers such as the Russian Ilya Muromets, the Italian Caproni and the German Gotha also attacked cities.
- BridgeheadGround on the far bank of a river or other obstacle, taken by an attacker or held by a defender, from which troops can be pushed further. Also a strip of coast seized in a landing.
- British Expeditionary ForceBritish Expeditionary ForceThe British army sent to France in August 1914 under Sir John French. From a few divisions of regular soldiers it grew during the war into five armies; Haig commanded it from December 1915.
C
- Camel troopsUnits mounted on camels, used in the deserts of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, Arabia and the Sudan. The best known was the British Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, but the Turks and Arabs had camel troops too.
- CensorshipMilitary and state control of the press, letters, telegrams and performances, meant to hide military information from the enemy and protect morale. In the war every belligerent and every occupier introduced it.
- Central PowersThe coalition of Germany and Austria-Hungary, joined by the Ottoman Empire (1914) and Bulgaria (1915). The name comes from their position in the middle of Europe. It lost the war in autumn 1918.
- ChekaAll-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK)The Cheka: the Bolshevik political police, set up on 20 December 1917 by the Council of People's Commissars and headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky. The main instrument of the Red Terror; in 1922 it became the GPU.
- Commerce raiderA surface warship hunting enemy merchant shipping on distant seas. In the First World War these were German cruisers such as Emden and armed merchant ships, or auxiliary cruisers, such as Möwe and Wolf.
- Contraband of warGoods that a belligerent may stop and confiscate at sea, even on a neutral ship, if they are bound for the enemy. Widening the contraband lists was the main legal instrument of the blockade of Germany.
- ConvoyA group of merchant ships or transports sailing together under the protection of warships. The British Admiralty introduced regular convoys in 1917, and they proved the most effective defence against U-boats.
- CorpsA formation usually of two or three divisions, with its own artillery and services, numbering several tens of thousands of men. Several corps made up an army.
- CossacksMilitary communities from Russia's borderlands that served in return for land. In the First World War they gave the Tsar's army hundreds of cavalry squadrons, and in 1917–1918 became a major anti-Bolshevik force.
- Council of People's CommissarsSovet Narodnykh Komissarov (Sovnarkom)The Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom): Soviet Russia's government, set up by the Second Congress of Soviets on the night of 8–9 November 1917 after the Bolshevik coup and chaired by Lenin.
- Czechoslovak LegionThe Czechoslovak Legion: Czech and Slovak units fighting on the Allied side, above all in Russia. In May 1918 its corps, travelling along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, rose against the Bolsheviks.
D
- Declaration of LondonA code of the law of naval war signed in London in 1909 that never came into force. At the start of the war the Allies applied it with changes, and in July 1916 they abandoned it altogether.
- DestroyerA fast, light warship armed with guns and torpedoes, originally meant to fight torpedo boats. In the First World War it screened fleets, made torpedo attacks and from 1917 escorted convoys and hunted U-boats.
- Distinguished Service OrderA British military order for officers, instituted in 1886, for distinguished service in action, especially in command. Second only to the Victoria Cross in prestige; about 9,000 were awarded in the First World War.
- DivisionThe basic formation of the armies of 1914–1918: infantry or cavalry with its own artillery, engineers and services, able to fight on its own. An infantry division of 1914 had 16,000–18,000 men.
- DreadnoughtA new type of battleship with many guns of a single heavy calibre and turbine propulsion, named after the British HMS Dreadnought of 1906. Older battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts.
E
F
- Fighter aviationAircraft and squadrons built to destroy enemy aircraft in the air. They developed from 1915, when the machine gun was synchronised with the propeller; pilots with five or more victories were called aces.
- First Cadre CompanyA rifle unit formed by Józef Piłsudski in Kraków on 3 August 1914. On 6 August it marched into the Kingdom of Poland to start a rising against Russia; the nucleus of the Legions.
- FlamethrowerA weapon projecting a jet of burning liquid over a range of a few dozen metres. The Germans first used it near Verdun in February 1915; it served to clear trenches and dugouts.
- FortressA city or communications hub ringed by forts and defences, with its own garrison and artillery. In 1914–1915 many fortresses, such as Liège, Antwerp and Przemyśl, fell after sieges.
- Fourteen PointsThe peace programme President Woodrow Wilson set out before Congress on 8 January 1918. Its thirteenth point called for an independent Poland with free access to the sea.
- Front (Russian)In the Russian army, the highest operational command, equivalent to an army group: several armies under a front commander-in-chief. The North-Western and South-Western Fronts were formed in 1914.
G
- Government-General of Warsaw and LublinThe two occupation zones of the Kingdom of Poland in 1915–1918: the German Government-General of Warsaw under General Hans von Beseler and the Austro-Hungarian Government-General of Lublin, each under a governor-general.
- Grand Fleet and High Seas FleetThe main battle fleets of Britain and Germany in the First World War. The British Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, held the North Sea; the German High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte) fought it at Jutland in 1916.
H
- Hague ConventionsAgreements on the laws and customs of war adopted at the peace conferences in The Hague in 1899 and 1907. During the war both sides invoked them, accusing the enemy of breaking them.
- Heavy artilleryLarge-calibre guns, above all howitzers and mortars firing heavy shells at a steep angle. In the First World War they smashed forts and field defences; the best known was the German 42 cm Big Bertha.
- Hejaz RailwayThe Ottoman railway from Damascus to Medina, opened in 1908. In the war it was the only supply route of the Turkish garrisons in the Hejaz and the main target of the Arab Revolt's raids.
- HetmanateThe Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, created by a coup under German occupation in April 1918. Conservative and dependent on Germany, it fell in December 1918 to the Directorate's uprising.
- Hindenburg LineA German defensive zone (Siegfriedstellung) from near Arras to Laffaux near Soissons, built from the autumn of 1916. The Germans withdrew to it in March 1917; the Allies broke it in the autumn of 1918.
- Hospital shipA ship marked with a red cross, carrying the sick and wounded, protected from attack by the laws of war. Over twenty were sunk by mines and torpedoes in the First World War, among them Britannic and Llandovery Castle.
- House of CommonsThe lower, elected house of the British Parliament at Westminster. In the war it voted money for the war, conscription and wartime laws, and the Asquith and Lloyd George governments rested on its majority.
- House of LordsThe upper, unelected house of the British Parliament, made up mainly of hereditary peers. Since 1911 it could only delay bills, but in the war ministers and critics of the government spoke there.
- Hurricane bombardmentA very violent, concentrated artillery bombardment before an attack, usually short, from a few minutes to a few hours, meant to surprise the defenders rather than warn them with days of shelling.
I
- Imperial Council (Austria)The parliament of the Austrian half of the Habsburg monarchy in 1861–1918, with a House of Lords and an elected House of Deputies. Adjourned in March 1914, it did not sit for three years of the war.
- InternmentInternment: holding until the end of the war a belligerent's soldiers or warships that reached neutral territory (Hague Conventions of 1907). The word was also used for confining civilians and political suspects.
J
- JihadThe holy war proclaimed in November 1914 in the name of the Sultan-Caliph Mehmed V against the Entente. Backed by Germany, it was meant to rouse Muslims in the British, French and Russian colonies.
- Julian calendarThe calendar dating from Julius Caesar, still used during the war in Russia and the Orthodox states. It ran 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, hence the double dates in the sources.
- July CrisisThe diplomatic crisis between the Sarajevo assassination on 28 June 1914 and the outbreak of war in early August, in which the ultimatum to Serbia and successive mobilisations drew in all the great powers.
K
L
- LandingAn amphibious operation putting troops ashore on an enemy coast, and the troops landed. The largest landing of the war was at Gallipoli in 1915.
- Landsturm and LandwehrSecond- and third-line forces of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies. The Landwehr took older trained reservists; the Landsturm, or home guard, the oldest age groups and the untrained.
- League of NationsThe international organisation created at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to settle disputes between states and prevent war. Its Covenant formed the first part of the Treaty of Versailles.
M
- Machine gunAn automatic weapon firing bursts of several hundred rounds a minute. In the First World War heavy machine guns on mounts, served by crews of several men, were the backbone of trench defence; lighter guns followed.
- Mandate systemThe administration of Germany's former colonies and the Ottoman Empire's Arab lands, entrusted after the war to victorious states on behalf of the League of Nations. Mandates were divided into classes A, B and C.
- MensheviksThe moderate faction of Russian Social Democracy, formed in the 1903 split with the Bolsheviks. In 1917 it helped lead the soviets and joined the Provisional Government; it rejected the Bolshevik coup.
- MobilisationPutting an army on a war footing: calling up the reservists, equipping them and moving them by rail to their concentration areas. In 1914 general mobilisation in practice meant war.
- MonitorA slow, shallow-draught warship with disproportionately heavy guns, built to bombard coasts and fight on rivers. In this war monitors fired off the Belgian coast, at the Dardanelles and on the Danube.
- Moroccan crisesTwo crises, in 1905–1906 and 1911, in which Germany tried to undermine French influence in Morocco. Both ended in German defeat and drew France and Britain closer together.
N
- National SchismThe split in Greece in 1915–1917 between Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who wanted war on the Entente's side, and King Constantine I, who wanted to keep the country neutral.
- Naval blockadeCutting off an enemy's ports and coasts from seaborne trade by a navy. In the First World War it usually means the blockade of Germany and its allies, enforced by Britain and France from 1914 to 1919.
- Naval mineAn explosive charge placed in the water that detonates on contact with a ship's hull. In the First World War both sides mined harbours, straits and shipping lanes; hundreds of vessels were lost to mines.
- NeutralityThe status of a state that takes no part in a war and supports neither side. The Hague Conventions of 1907 declared neutral territory inviolable.
- No man's landThe strip of ground between the opposing trenches, held by neither side. Cratered by shells, crossed by wire and swept by fire from both sides, it was from a few dozen to several hundred metres wide.
- November RevolutionThe revolution in Germany in the autumn of 1918, begun by the sailors' mutiny at Kiel. Workers' and soldiers' councils took power in the cities, the Empire fell on 9 November and Germany became a republic.
O
- Oath crisisThe refusal in July 1917 by most legionnaires of the I and III Brigades, at Józef Piłsudski's call, to swear an oath of brotherhood in arms with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
- Ober OstOberbefehlshaber OstOber Ost: the German supreme command on the Eastern Front, held by Hindenburg from 1 November 1914, and the occupied area it ran from 1915: Lithuania, Courland and the Białystok–Grodno lands.
- OkhranaThe Tsarist political police, which hunted revolutionaries with informers and agents provocateurs. Its Petrograd headquarters was burned in the February Revolution of 1917, and the Provisional Government abolished it.
P
- Paris GunA German 21 cm long-range gun that shelled Paris from more than 100 km away between 23 March and 9 August 1918. Parisians called it "Bertha", wrongly linking it with Big Bertha.
- Paris Peace ConferenceThe conference of the victorious powers and their allies, held in Paris from 18 January 1919 to January 1920. It drew up the peace treaties with the defeated states and the Covenant of the League of Nations.
- Partitions of PolandThe lands of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1772, 1793 and 1795. In 1914 Poles lived in three partitions whose rulers fought on opposite sides.
- Poison gasChemical weapons: irritant, choking or blistering agents such as chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas, released from cylinders or fired in shells. Germany made the first major gas attack at Ypres on 22 April 1915.
- Polish Armed Forces (Polnische Wehrmacht)Polnische WehrmachtThe army of the Kingdom of Poland built by the Germans from 1917 under General Hans von Beseler. It stayed small; in October 1918 the Regency Council took it over.
- Polish Corps in RussiaThree Polish corps formed in 1917–1918 from Poles serving in the Russian army. They fought the Bolsheviks and were disarmed by the Germans and Austrians in May and June 1918.
- Polish Council of Inter-Party UnionA union of Polish national and conservative parties in Russia, based in Moscow and linked to the Polish National Committee in Paris. In 1918 it helped to raise Polish troops on the Entente side.
- Polish LegionsA Polish volunteer force that fought alongside Austria-Hungary against Russia in 1914–1917. It grew out of Józef Piłsudski's rifle units.
- Polish Military OrganisationThe POW, a secret military organisation founded in Warsaw in 1914 by followers of Józef Piłsudski. It fought for independence, first against Russia and from 1917 against Germany and Austria-Hungary.
- Polish National CommitteeThe KNP, the Polish political representation in the Entente countries, founded by Roman Dmowski in Lausanne on 15 August 1917 and based in Paris. It led Polish policy in the West and the Polish Army in France.
- Pour le MéritePrussia's highest military order, awarded only to officers. In the First World War it went to commanders for victories and also to airmen and U-boat captains; it was nicknamed the "Blue Max".
- Prisoners of warSoldiers captured by the enemy. In 1914–1918 an estimated 7 to 9 million men were taken prisoner, most of them on the Eastern Front.
- Provisional Council of StateA Polish advisory body in the occupied Kingdom of Poland, set up by Germany and Austria-Hungary after the Act of 5 November. It sat from January to August 1917.
R
- Railway gunA heavy gun on a special railway mounting, moved and usually fired from the track. In the First World War it was most often a converted naval gun, used to shell forts, rail junctions and towns behind the front.
- RationingRationing: allocating food and other goods in limited amounts, usually by ration cards. In the war it was introduced by belligerents and occupiers, and Britain also imposed import quotas on neutral countries.
- Red ArmyWorkers' and Peasants' Red ArmyThe Red Army: the armed forces of Soviet Russia, created by a Council of People's Commissars decree of 28 January 1918 to replace the disintegrating tsarist army. At first voluntary, from 1918 conscripted.
- Red CrossThe movement for aid to war victims: the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the national societies. It ran hospitals and carried the wounded, and its Geneva agency traced prisoners and the missing.
- Regency CouncilA three-member supreme authority in the Kingdom of Poland, set up by Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1917. It proclaimed Polish independence in October 1918 and handed power to Piłsudski in November.
- ReparationsThe compensation the defeated Central Powers were to pay the victors for war damage. The principle was accepted in the Lansing Note of November 1918, and Germany's sum was fixed in 1921.
- RequisitionsThe compulsory taking of food, horses, raw materials, machinery or ships by an army or state for the needs of the war, against a receipt or an artificially low price. In occupied lands they deepened poverty and hunger.
- Riflemen's AssociationThe legal paramilitary organisation of Piłsudski's camp in Galicia, founded in 1910 as a front for the secret Union of Active Struggle. In August 1914 its Riflemen formed the nucleus of the Polish Legions.
- Room 40The British Admiralty's codebreaking section, named after the number of its room. It read German naval and diplomatic messages, and in 1917 the Zimmermann telegram.
- Russian Provisional GovernmentRussia's government formed on 15 March 1917 after the February Revolution, led by Prince Georgy Lvov and from July by Alexander Kerensky. The Bolsheviks overthrew it on 7 November 1917.
S
- Schlieffen PlanGermany's plan for a two-front war: defeat France quickly with a sweep through Belgium, then turn the army against Russia. Named after the Chief of the General Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen.
- SchutztruppeGermany's colonial troops in Africa, made up of German officers and mostly African soldiers. In 1914–1918 they defended the colonies, longest of all in East Africa under Lettow-Vorbeck.
- SeaplaneAn aircraft that takes off from and lands on water, on floats or with a boat-shaped hull. In the First World War it scouted at sea, hunted U-boats and bombed, and in 1915 it attacked a ship with a torpedo.
- Seaplane carrierA ship, usually a converted merchantman, that carried seaplanes, lowered them onto the water and hoisted them back. It led to the aircraft carrier: in 1918 aircraft from HMS Furious bombed the airship base at Tondern.
- SenussiA Sufi Muslim order from Cyrenaica in Libya. From 1911 it fought the Italians, and in 1915–1917, urged on by the Ottomans, it waged war on the British along Egypt's western border.
- Shrapnel shellAn artillery shell filled with lead balls that a time fuze released in the air in front of the target. Effective against infantry in the open, in trench warfare it gave way to high-explosive shells.
- Sokół (Polish Falcons)The Polish Gymnastic Society "Sokół" (Falcon), founded in Lviv in 1867. In the war its members joined the Legions, the volunteer units in France and Haller's Army, and in 1918 the Greater Poland Uprising.
- SovietA council (Russian: soviet) of deputies elected by workers and soldiers in revolutionary Russia in 1917. The Petrograd Soviet shared power with the Provisional Government; after October the Bolsheviks ruled in its name.
- Spanish fluThe Spanish flu: an influenza pandemic caused by an H1N1 virus in 1918–1919, at its deadliest in the autumn of 1918. About a third of humanity fell ill and tens of millions died, many of them young adults.
- Spartacus LeagueThe revolutionary wing of the German left, opposed to the war and led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. At the turn of 1918 and 1919 it became the core of the Communist Party of Germany.
- Stab-in-the-back mythThe post-war myth that the German army, undefeated in the field, had been betrayed by politicians, socialists and revolutionaries at home. Hindenburg and Ludendorff spread it, and the far right exploited it.
- State DumaThe State Duma: the lower house of the Russian Empire's parliament in 1906–1917, elected on an unequal franchise. In the war it criticised the government; in March 1917 its committee formed the Provisional Government.
- StavkaThe headquarters of the Russian army's commander-in-chief in 1914–1918, first at Baranovichi, from 1915 at Mogilev. It was led by Grand Duke Nicholas and then by Tsar Nicholas II himself.
- Storm troopsSpecially trained infantry who broke into enemy positions in small groups with grenades, light weapons and flamethrowers. The best known were the German Sturmtruppen, used en masse in 1918.
- Supreme Army Command (OHL)Oberste HeeresleitungThe German army's high command in wartime, formed from the General Staff on mobilisation in 1914. It was led in turn by Moltke, Falkenhayn, and Hindenburg with Ludendorff.
- Supreme National CommitteeThe NKN, the political body of the Polish parties of Galicia, founded in Kraków on 16 August 1914. It organised the Polish Legions and favoured uniting the Polish lands under the Habsburgs.
- Supreme People's CouncilThe Polish authority in the Prussian partition, which emerged in Poznań in November 1918. It led the Poles of Greater Poland, Pomerania and Silesia, and after the Greater Poland Uprising ruled the liberated lands.
- Sykes–Picot AgreementA secret plan to divide the Ottoman Empire's Asian lands into British and French spheres, worked out by Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot and accepted in spring 1916, Russia included.
T
- TankAn armoured tracked vehicle armed with guns or machine guns, built to cross trenches and barbed wire. The first tanks, British, went into action on the Somme on 15 September 1916.
- Treaty of Brest-LitovskThe peace signed at Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Russia left the war and gave up vast lands in the west.
- Treaty of VersaillesThe peace treaty between Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers, signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919. It formally ended the war with Germany and gave Poland most of Greater Poland and Pomerania.
- TrenchA ditch dug to shelter soldiers from fire, with a parapet facing the enemy and barbed wire in front. In 1914–1918 trench systems stretched for hundreds of kilometres along the fronts.
- Trench mortarA light, short-barrelled gun firing at a steep angle from a trench over a short range. The Germans called it the Minenwerfer, the British used the Stokes mortar; in trench warfare every division had them.
- Trench warfareWarfare in which both sides hold continuous lines of trenches and fortifications and the front barely moves. On the Western Front it lasted from the autumn of 1914 to the spring of 1918.
- Tunnel warfareDigging tunnels under enemy positions to blow them up with huge explosive charges, and fighting the enemy's miners underground. The best-known mines went off at Messines, on the Somme and on Col di Lana.
U
- U-boatUnterseebootA German submarine. U-boats sank warships and merchant ships, and their campaign against shipping, unrestricted from February 1917, drew the United States into the war.
- Ukrainian Central RadaThe Ukrainian revolutionary parliament formed in Kyiv in March 1917 under Mykhailo Hrushevsky. It proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic and its independence, and was overthrown by the Germans in April 1918.
- Union sacrée and BurgfriedenThe political truce proclaimed in August 1914: in France the 'sacred union' (union sacrée), in Germany the 'castle peace' (Burgfrieden). Parties, socialists included, backed the government for the duration.
- Unrestricted submarine warfareThe sinking by submarines, without warning, of all ships in designated zones, neutral ones included. Germany declared it in 1915, scaled it back after US protests and resumed it on 1 February 1917.
V
W
- War CabinetA small body within a government that directs the conduct of a war. Most often it means David Lloyd George's five-member British War Cabinet of 1916–1919 and the Imperial War Cabinet with the dominions.
- War cemeteriesCemeteries for soldiers killed in the war, laid out by states and war graves agencies. In the Polish lands they include more than 400 cemeteries built by Austria-Hungary in Western Galicia in 1916–1918.
- War loansLong-term loans that the belligerents raised from their own citizens by selling them bonds in great propaganda campaigns. They covered a large part of the cost of the war and left an enormous debt.
- War of attritionA war in which no single decisive victory is sought; instead the enemy's men, materiel, economy and morale are worn down step by step. The First World War took on this character after 1914.
- War propagandaThe systematic shaping of the opinion of one's own public, allies, neutrals and the enemy through the press, posters, pamphlets, films and leaflets. In this war state agencies ran it on a mass scale for the first time.
- WhitesThe Whites: the Bolsheviks' opponents in the Russian Civil War, grouped around former tsarist generals such as Kornilov, Denikin and Kolchak. Finland's government forces in its 1918 civil war were also called Whites.
- Women's suffrageThe right of women to vote and stand for election. Suffragists had fought for it since the 19th century, and in 1917–1918, helped by women's war work, they won it in Russia, Britain, Germany and Poland, among others.
Y
- Yıldırım Army GroupThe Ottoman-German army group ("Lightning", German Heeresgruppe F) formed in 1917 to retake Baghdad. Sent to Palestine instead, it defended it against Allenby and was destroyed at Megiddo in 1918.
- Young TurksAn Ottoman nationalist reform movement organised in the Committee of Union and Progress. From 1913 it ruled the state and took it into the war on Germany's side; its leaders organised the Armenian genocide.