A world undone: the story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 (3 page)

1918

Major Characters

Albert I.
King of Belgium; commander of Belgian forces during the war

Alexandra.
Tsarina of Russia; wife of Nicholas II

Alexeyev, Mikhail.
Chief of staff to Nicholas II; commander in chief of Russian armies following the tsar’s abdication

Asquith, Herbert Henry.
British prime minister, 1908–16

Balfour, Arthur.
British Conservative leader; succeeded Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1915; succeeded Grey as foreign secretary December 1916

Below, Otto von.
German general holding major commands on the Eastern, Western, and Italian Fronts and in the Balkans

Berchtold, Leopold von.
Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, 1912–15

Bernstorff, Johann von.
German ambassador to the U.S. 1908–17

Bethmann Hollweg, Theobold von.
Chancellor of Germany, 1909–17

Bonar Law, Andrew.
British Conservative and Unionist leader; chancellor of the exchequer, 1916–18

Briand, Aristide.
French politician; succeeded Viviani as premier, October 1915; headed government until March 1917

Bruchmüller, Georg.
German artillerist; originator of brilliantly innovative offensive tactics

Brusilov, Alexei.
Russian army and army group commander; leader of the 1916 offensive that bears his name

Bülow, Karl von.
Commander of German Second Army at the start of the war

Byng, Julian.
Commander of British Third Army in 1917 and 1918

Cadorna, Luigi.
Chief of general staff of the Italian army, July 1914– November 1917

Caillaux, Joseph.
Leader of French political opposition in 1914; arrested by Clemenceau government in 1918

Carden, Sackville.
British admiral; commander of Royal Navy forces involved in the start of the Dardanelles offensive

Castelnau, Noël-Edouard de.
French army and army group commander

Churchill, Winston.
Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, 1911–15; minister of munitions, 1917–18

Clemenceau, Georges.
“The Tiger”; French premier from November 1917

Conrad von Hötzendorf, Franz.
Austro-Hungarian field marshal; army chief of staff to March 1917

Currie, Arthur.
Commander of Canadian army corps on the Western Front, 1917–18

De Robeck, John.
British admiral; second commander of Royal Navy forces at the Dardanelles

Driant, Émile.
French politician, writer, and lieutenant colonel; killed in opening fighting at Verdun

Enver Pasha.
Turkish general; leading member of the Young Turks; minister of war 1914–18, commanding troops in the Caucasus and Middle East

Evert, Alexei.
Commander of Russia’s Western Army Group from September 1915

Falkenhayn, Erich von.
Prussian war minister, 1913–15; army chief of staff, September 1914–August 1916

Fisher, John.
British admiral; first sea lord, October 1914–May 1915

Foch, Ferdinand.
French general; appointed Allied supreme commander, April 1918

Franchet d’Esperey, Louis.
French army and army group commander on the Western Front and, from mid-1918, in Salonika and the Balkans

Franz Ferdinand.
Archduke; heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary; assassinated in Sarajevo, June 28, 1915

Franz Joseph.
Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, 1848–1916

French, John.
Commander of British Expeditionary Force, August 1914– December 1915

Gallieni, Joseph.
French general; key figure in First Battle of the Marne; minister of war, 1915–16

George V.
King of Great Britain

Gough, Hubert.
British division, corps, and army commander; removed after defeat of his Fifth Army in the German offensive of 1918

Grey, Edward.
British foreign secretary, 1905–16

Gröner, Wilhelm.
German staff officer and administrator; succeeded Ludendorff as Hindenburg’s chief of staff, October 1918

Haig, Douglas.
Senior general with British Expeditionary Force from August 1914; commander in chief from December 1915

Hamilton, Ian.
British general; commander of Entente forces at Gallipoli, March–October 1915

Hertling, Georg von.
German chancellor, November 1917–October 1918

Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff und von.
German field marshal; army chief of staff from August 1916

Hoffmann, Max.
Key German military planner and leader on the Eastern Front

Holtzendorff, Henning von.
Chief of staff of the German navy, 1915–18

Horne, Henry.
Commander of British First Army, 1916–18

House, “Colonel” Edward.
American president Woodrow Wilson’s principal adviser on foreign affairs

Hutier, Oskar von.
German corps and army commander on Eastern Front, 1915–17; introduced innovative offensive tactics that came to bear his name; commander of Eighteenth Army on the Western Front, 1918

Jagow, Gottlieb von.
German foreign minister to March 1917

Jellicoe, John.
Commander of Britain’s High Seas Fleet, 1914–16; first sea lord, 1916–17

Joffre, Joseph.
Chief of French general staff, 1911–16

Karl I.
Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary from 1916

Kemal, Mustafa.
Turkish division commander at Gallipoli; later served in the Caucasus and Middle East

Kerensky, Alexander.
Russian social democratic leader; prime minister, July–November 1917

Kitchener, Horatio.
British war minister, August 1914–June 1916

Kluck, Alexander von.
Commander of the German First Army at the start of the war

Kühlmann, Richard von.
German foreign minister, August 1917–July 1918

Lanrezac, Charles.
Commander of the French Fifth Army at the start of the war

Lansing, Robert.
U.S. secretary of state, 1915–20

Lawrence, T. E.
“Lawrence of Arabia”; planner and leader of Arab revolt, 1917–18

Leman, Gérard.
Commander of Belgian defenders at Liège, 1914

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich.
Leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Communist Party; head of the government from late 1917

Lichnowsky, Karl Max.
German ambassador to Britain

Lloyd George, David.
British chancellor of the exchequer, 1908–15; minister of munitions, 1915–16; war minister, 1916; prime minister from December 1916

Ludendorff, Erich.
German general; chief of staff to Hindenburg, August 1914–August 1916; quartermaster general of the German army, 1916–18; effectively dictator of Germany from mid–1917

Mackensen, August von.
German field marshal holding important commands on the Eastern Front, 1914–18

Mangin, Charles.
French general; prominent at Charleroi, Verdun, the Chemin des Dames, and the Second Battle of the Marne

Marwitz, Georg von der.
Commander of the German Second Army at Cambrai in 1917 and in the 1918 offensive

Max of Baden, Prince.
German chancellor, October–November 1918

Michaelis, Georg.
German chancellor, July–October 1917

Millerand, Alexandre.
French minister of war, August 1914–October 1915

Milner, Alfred.
Member of Lloyd George’s War Council, 1916–18; minister of war from April 1918.

Moltke, Helmuth von.
Chief of staff of German army, 1906–September 1914

Monash, John.
Commander of Australian Army Corps on the Western Front from May 1918

Nicholas, Grand Duke.
Cousin of Nicholas II; Russian general; commander in chief, August 1914–September 1915; then served in the Caucasus

Nicholas II.
Tsar of Russia, 1894–1917; executed, 1918

Nivelle, Robert.
Commander in chief of the French armies, December 1916–May 1917

Painlevé, Paul.
French minister of war from March 1917; premier, September–November 1917

Paléologue, Maurice.
French ambassador to Russia, 1914–17

Pasic, Nikola.
Prime Minister of Serbia

Pershing, John J.
Commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force from May 1917

Pétain, Henri-Philippe.
French general; army commander in chief from May 1917

Plumer, Herbert.
British corps and army commander, responsible for sector around Ypres

Poincaré, Raymond.
President of France, 1913–20

Polivanov, Alexei.
Russian general; succeeded Sukhomlinov as war minister, June 1915; dismissed, March 1916

Pourtalès, Friedrich von.
German ambassador to Russia

Prittwitz, Max von.
Commander of German Eighth Army in August 1914

Putnik, Radomir.
Serbian field marshal, war minister, and army chief of staff until 1916

Rasputin, Grigori.
Russian monk, mystic, and intimate of the tsar’s family

Rawlinson, Henry.
British general, serving primarily as commander of the Fourth Army

Rennenkampf, Pavel von.
Commander of Russian First Army at Tannenberg, August 1914

Robertson, William.
British general; chief of the imperial general staff, December 1915–March 1918

Rupprecht, Crown Prince.
Heir to the throne of Bavaria; commander of a German army from August 1914; of an army group from July 1916

Samsonov, Alexander.
Commander of Russian Second Army at Tannenberg, August 1914

Sanders, Otto Liman von.
German general, commander of Turkish defenses at Gallipoli

Sarrail, Maurice.
Commander of French Third Army, 1914–15; Army of the Orient at Salonika, 1916–17

Sazonov, Sergei.
Russian foreign minister, 1910–16