Theaters of WWI
IB 20th Century Topics
What does a “theater” refer to when
talking about a war?
 the entire land, sea, and air area that
may become or is directly involved in
war operations
The Theaters involved in WWI are:
 The Western Front
 The Eastern Front
 The Italian Front
 Gallipoli
 The War at Sea
The Western Front
The map shows the
geographical position of
the Western Front
stretching from Belgium
in the north to
Switzerland in the south.
Each colored square
represents 50,000 men.
Yellow represents the
German army, blue the
French, red the British
and orange the Belgian
army.
The Western Front Info
 The German army crossed the Belgian
border on August 3rd 1914.
 Britain and France declared war on
Germany on August 4th.
 The Germans pushed through Belgium,
occupying Brussels before entering France.
 The British and French armies marched to
stop the German advance
Important Battles fought on the
Western Front
 Marne, September 1914;
 first battle of Ypres, October -
November 1914;
 Verdun, February - December 1916;
 Somme, July - November 1916;
 Passchendale, July - November 1917;
 Cambrai, November 1917;
 2nd Battle of Marne, July 1918
The Eastern Front
The map shows
the geographical
location of the
Eastern front
stretching from
Riga in the north
to Czernowitz in
the south. The
orange line shows
the position of the
Eastern Front in
1915. Each
colored square
represents 50,000
men. Red
represents the
Russian army,
yellow, German
soldiers and blue
Austro-Hungarian.
Eastern Front Info
 The line of fighting on the Eastern side of
Europe between Russia and Germany and
Austria-Hungary is known as the Eastern
Front.
 Fighting began on the Eastern front when
Russia invaded East Prussia on August 17,
1914. Germany immediately launched a
counter-offensive and pushed Russia back
Eastern Front Info
 This pattern of attack and counter-attack continued for the
first two years of the war and meant that the Eastern Front
changed position as land was captured and lost by both sides.
 Battles fought along this front include –
 Tannenberg, August 1914;
 Masurian Lakes, September 1914;
 Bolimov, January 1915;
 Lake Naroch, March 1916;
 Riga, September 1917.
Italian Front
The Italians only
managed to
advance a short way
into Austria (shown
by the red line on
the map
The 1918 location of
the Italian front is
marked on the map
in yellow.
Italian Front Info
 The Italian front is the name given to the fighting
that took place along the border between Italy and
Austria
 Prior to the outbreak of war in August 1914, Italy
had tended to side with Germany and AustriaHungary.
 To begin with, Italy kept out of the war. However,
tempted by offers of more land once the war was
won, Italy entered the war in April 1915 on the side
of the allies.
Gallipoli Front Info
 The Gallipoli peninsula is located in the
south of Turkey.
 In 1915, the Allies decided to try to
attack Germany by attacking her ally,
Turkey.
Gallipoli
The map shows the front line. The
blue line shows the allies position
while the green shows the Turkish
line.
Gallipoli Info
 Allied soldiers, mainly from Australia and
New Zealand, were sent to the Peninsula
while British ships tried to force a way
through the Dardanelles.
 The entire mission was a failure. The allies
lost more than 50,000 men but gained
hardly any land.
The War at Sea
 Before WWI, Germany and Britain were
involved in a naval race
 Britain had a long tradition of being the
master of the seas and Germany knew that
she was unlikely to win a naval war against
Britain.
The War at Sea
Britain's main naval tactic was to keep
German ships in German ports and to block
supplies from reaching Germany.
 Germany's main naval tactic was to post uboats in the Atlantic ocean and to destroy
ships taking supplies from America and
other countries to Britain.

German U-boat sinking a British Ship