It's A Long, Long Way To Tipperary

It's A Long, Long Way To Tipperary is a marching tune from World War I (The Great War).

Steps Leading to The Great War. Germany under Wilhelm II sought a political and imperial role consonant with its industrial strength, challenging Britain's world supremacy and threatening France, which was still resenting eh loss (1871) of Alsace-Lorraine. Austria wanted to curb and expanded Serbia (after 1912) and the threat it posed to its own Slav lands. Russia feared Austria and German political and economic aims in the Balkans and Turkey. An accelerated arms race resulted: The German standing army rose to more than 2 million men by 1914. Russia and France had more than a million each, and Austria and the British Empire nearly a million each. Dozens of enormous battleships were built by the posers after 1906.

The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian, on June 28, 1914, was the pretext needed for war. The system of alliances made the conflict Europe-wide; Germany's invasion of Belgium to outflank France forced Britain to enter the war. Patriotic fervor and morale was nearly unanimous among all classes in most countries and can be demonstrated in It's A Long, Long Way To Tipperary sung by our English speaking troops of World War I.

The War To End All Wars. German forces were stopped in France in one month. The rival armies dug trench networks. Artillery and improved machine guns prevented either side from any lasting advance despite repeated assaults (600,000 dead at Verdun. February-July 1916). Poison gas, used by Germany in 1915, proved ineffective. The entrance of more than 1 million U.S. troops tipped the balance after mid-1917, forcing Germany to sue for peace the next year. The formal armistice was signed at 5:00 AM, November 11, 1918. More than 10 million soldiers died in the war.

Words and Music by Jack Judge and Harry Williams.