Allies of World War I

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The Allies of World War I, sometimes referred to as the Entente Powers' (from Triple Entente), were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The main allies were France, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, Italy and the United States. France, Russia, the United Kingdom (and, by default, its empire), entered World War I in 1914, as a result of their Triple Entente alliance. Many other countries later joined the Allied side in the war (see below).

It should be noted that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his administration were determined not to define the U.S. as an "ally". The United States declared war on Germany on the grounds of German violations of American neutrality, by attacking international shipping. The U.S. entered the war as an "associated power", rather than a formal ally of France and Britain, and maintained that distance throughout the war. The U.S. was not at war with some of the Central Powers, such as the Ottoman Empire or Bulgaria.

Although the Dominions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire made significant contributions to the Allied war effort, they did not have independent foreign policies during World War I. Operational control of British Empire forces was in the hands of the five-member British War Cabinet (BWC). However, the Dominion governments controlled recruiting, and did remove personnel from front-line duties as they saw fit. From early 1917 the BWC was superseded by the Imperial War Cabinet, which had Dominion representation. The Australian and Canadian army units were grouped in their own separate army corps, under Australian and Canadian commanders, who reported in turn to British and/or French generals.

In April 1918, operational control of all Allied forces on the Western Front passed to the new supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch.

Allied states

(including Belgian colonial forces)
British Empire

French Third Republic (including French colonial forces)
Kingdom of Greece (May 1917 and after)
Kingdom of Italy (April 1915 and after)
Kingdom of Montenegro
Kingdom of Serbia
Portugal (March 1916 and after) (including Portuguese colonial forces)
Kingdom of Romania (August 1916-May 1918)
(until November 1917)
(April 1917 and after)

as well as:

Albania
Armenia (May 1918 and after)
(April 1917 and after)
Brazil (October 1917 and after)
(August 1917 and after)
(May 1918 and after)
(April 1917 and after)
Czecho-Slovak Republic (October 1918 and after) - See Czechoslovak Legions
(December 1917 and after)
(April 1918 and after)
(August 1917 and after)
(July 1918 and after)
(July 1918 and after)
(May 1918 and after)
(December 1917 and after)
(October 1917 and after)
(June 1915 and after)
Siam (July 1917 and after)
(October 1917 and after)

Leaders

Nikolas II - Russian Emperor, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland.
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich - Commander-in-chief and viceroy in the Caucasus
Alexander Samsonov - Commander of the Russian Second Army for the invasion of East Prussia
Paul von Rennenkampf - Commander of the Russian First Army for the invasion of East Prussia
Nikolai Ivanov - Commander of the Russian army on the Southwestern Front, responsible for much of the action in Galicia
Aleksei Brusilov - Commander of the South-West Front, then provisional Commander-in-Chief after the Tsar's abdication
Raymond Poincaré - President of France
Georges Clemenceau - Prime Minister of France
Joseph Joffre - Commander-in-Chief of the French Army and Marshal of France
Ferdinand Foch - Commander-in-Chief of the French Army and Marshal of France, Supreme Allied Commander
Robert Nivelle - Commander-in-Chief of the French Army
Philippe Pétain - Commander-in-Chief of the French Army and Marshal of France
George V - King of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms, Emperor of India
H. H. Asquith - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
D. Lloyd George - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Douglas Haig - Commander-in-Chief of the BEF
John Jellicoe - First Sea Lord
Horatio Herbert Kitchener - Secretary of State for War
Peter I - King of Serbia
vojvoda Radomir Putnik - Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Army
vojvoda Petar Bojović - Commander of 1st Serbian Army, later Chief of General Staff
vojvoda Stepa Stepanović - Commander of 2nd Serbian Army
vojvoda Živojin Mišić - Commander of 1st Serbian Army
Albert I of Belgium - King of Belgium
Victor Emmanuel III - King of Italy
Luigi Cadorna - Commander-in-Chief of the Italian army
Armando Diaz - Chief of General Staff of the Italian army
Luigi, Duke of Abruzzi - Commander-in-Chief of the Adriatic Fleet of Italy
Constantin Prezan - Chief of the General Staff of Romania
Alexandru Averescu - Commander of the Romanian 2nd Army, 3rd Army, then Army Group South
Woodrow Wilson - President of the United States
John J. Pershing - Commander of the American Expeditionary Force
Emperor Taishō - Emperor of Japan
Ōkuma Shigenobu - Prime Minister of Japan

Personnel and casualties of the Allied powers

These are estimates of the cumulative number of different personnel in uniform 1914-1918, including army, navy and auxiliary forces. At any one time, the various forces were much smaller. Only a fraction of them were combat troops. The numbers do not reflect the length of time each country was involved, or the number of casualties. (See also: World War I casualties.)

Allied powers	Personnel	Killed in action	Wounded in action	Total casualties	Casualties as % of total personnel
Australia	412,953	61,928	152,171	214,099	52%
Belgium	267,000	38,172	44,686	82,858	31%
Canada	628,964	64,944	149,732	214,676	34%
France	8,410,000	1,397,800	4,266,000	5,663,800	67%
Greece	230,000	26,000	21,000	47,000	20%
India	1,440,437	74,187	69,214	143,401	10%
Italy	5,615,000	651,010	953,886	1,604,896	29%
Japan	800,000	415	907	1,322	<1%
Montenegro	50,000	3,000	10,000	13,000	26%
New Zealand	128,525	18,050	41,317	59,367	46%
Newfoundland	11,922	1,204	2,314	3,518	30%
Portugal	100,000	7,222	13,751	20,973	21%
Romania	750,000	250,000	120,000	370,000	49%
Russia	12,000,000	1,811,000	4,950,000	6,761,000	56%
Serbia	707,343	275,000	133,148	408,148	58%
South Africa	136,070	9,463	12,029	21,492	16%
United Kingdom	6,200,000	885,138	1,663,435	2,548,573	41%
United States	4,355,000	116,708	205,690	322,398	7%
Total	42,243,214	5,691,241	12,809,280	18,500,521	44%

Bibliography

See List of World War I books

Ellis, John and Mike Cox. The World War I Databook: The Essential Facts and Figures for All the Combatants (2002)
Esposito, Vincent J. The West Point Atlas of American Wars: 1900-1918 (1997) despite the title covers entire war; online maps from this atlas
Falls, Cyril. The Great War (1960), general military history
Higham, Robin and Dennis E. Showalter, eds. Researching World War I: A Handbook (2003), historiography, stressing military themes
Pope, Stephen and Wheal, Elizabeth-Anne, eds. The Macmillan Dictionary of the First World War (1995)
Strachan, Hew. The First World War: Volume I: To Arms (2004)
Trask, David F. The United States in the Supreme War Council: American War Aims and Inter-Allied Strategy, 1917-1918 (1961)
Tucker, Spencer, ed. The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History (5 vol 2005), online at eBook.com
Tucker, Spencer, ed. European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (1999)

Footnotes

-Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914-1920, The War Office March 1922 -Reprinted by Naval & Military Press- ISBN 1-84734-681-2
Gilbert,Martin-Atlas of World War I, Oxford UP, 1994. ISBN 0-19-521077-8
-Tucker, Spencer C. The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia, Garland Publishing, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-8153-3351-X
-The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2005-2006 -The report is available online at
-The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour Register.
-Urlanis, Boris, Wars and Population, Moscow, 1971
-Huber M.,La Population de la France pendant la guerre, Paris 1931
-Bujac, Jean. Les campagnes de l'armèe Hellènique, 1918-1922, Paris, 1930
Mortara, G. La Salute pubblica in Italia durante e dopo la Guerra, New Haven: Yale University Press 1925.
Harries, Merion, Soldiers of the Sun-The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army,Random House, 1991 ISBN 0-679-75303-6
Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts- A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500-2000. 2nd Ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6.