Central Powers

The Allies of World War I or Entente Powers were the coalition of countries led by France, Britain, Russia, Italy and Japan against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria during the First World War (1914–1918).


By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the major European powers were divided between the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.

The Triple Entente was made up of France, Britain, and Russia.

The Triple Alliance was originally composed of Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, which remained neutral in 1914.

As the war progressed, each coalition added new members. Japan joined the Entente in 1914. After proclaiming its neutrality at the beginning of the war, Italy also joined the Entente in 1915.

The term “Allies” became more widely used than “Entente”, although the Principal Allies of France, Britain, Russia, Italy, and Japan were sometimes known also as Quintuple Entente.

The colonies and occupations of the countries of the allies were also part of the allied powers like British India (India, Myanmar [Burma], Bangladesh, Pakistan), French Indochina (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) and Japanese Korea (North and South Korea).


The United States joined in 1917 (the same year in which Russia withdrew from the conflict) as an “associated power” rather than an official ally.

Other “associated members” included Serbia, Belgium, Montenegro, Asir, Nejd and Hasa, Portugal, Romania, Hejaz, Panama, Cuba, Greece, China, Siam (now Thailand), Brazil, Armenia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Haiti, Liberia and Honduras.

The treaties signed at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 recognized the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan and the United States as the ‘principal Allied powers’.

Albania

Albania during World War 1

Albania a(w)l-BAY-nee-ə; Albanian: Shqipëri or Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipni or Shqipnia also Shqypni or Shqypnia), officially the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë, pronounced [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːsə]), is a country in Southeast Europe on the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea within the Mediterranean Sea.

It shares land borders with Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east, Greece to the south, and maritime borders with Greece, Montenegro, and Italy to the west.

Historically, the country has been inhabited by numerous civilizations such as the Illyrians, Thracians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans.

The Albanians established the autonomous Principality of Arbër in the 12th century. The Kingdom of Albania and Principality of Albania formed between the 13th and 14th centuries.

Prior to the Ottoman conquest of Albania in the 15th century, the Albanian resistance to Ottoman expansion into Europe led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg won them acclaim over most of Europe.

Between the 18th and 19th centuries, Albanians gathered both spiritual and intellectual strength which conclusively led to the Albanian Renaissance. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars, the modern nation-state of Albania emerged in 1912. 

In the 20th century, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy which formed Greater Albania before becoming a protectorate of Nazi Germany.

Enver Hoxha formed Communist Albania after the Second World War and launched the Albanians on a path of oppression and decades of isolation.

The Revolutions of 1991 concluded the fall of communism in Albania and eventually the establishment of the current Republic of Albania.

Politically, the country is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic and developing country with an upper-middle income economy dominated by the service sector, followed by manufacturing. It went through a process of transition, following the end of communism in 1990, from centralized planning to a market-based economy. 

Albania provides universal health care and free primary and secondary education to its citizens.

Birth of Albania, The: Ethnic Nationalism, the Great Powers of World War I and the Emergence of Albanian Independence

Entente Powers

Entente Powers

The Triple Entente (Arabic: الوفاق الثلاثي‎ Turkish: Üçlü İtilaf Russian: Тройственная Антанта, romanized: Troystvennaya Antanta, from French entente [ɑ̃tɑ̃t] meaning “friendship, understanding, agreement”) describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic and Great Britain.

It built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between Paris and London, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. It formed a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.

The Triple Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance itself, was not an alliance of mutual defense.

The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907 was a key part of building a coalition as France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia, and (informally) with Britain.

Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on a Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guaranty for France’s strategically vulnerable possessions in Indochina.

Britain encouraged the Russo-Japanese rapprochement.

Thus was built the Triple Entente coalition that fought World War I.

At the start of World War I in 1914, all three Triple Entente members entered it as Allied Powers against the Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary.

On September 4, 1914, the Triple Entente issued a declaration undertaking not to conclude a separate peace and only to demand terms of peace agreed between the three parties.

Historians continue to debate the importance of the alliance system as one of the causes of World War I.