Allies of World War I
|
European military alliances in 1915. The Central Powers are depicted in purple, the Allies in grey and neutral countries in yellow. |
The
Allies of World War I are sometimes also referred to as the
Entente Powers or
Entente Forces.The main allies were the
French Third Republic,
Imperial Russia, the
British Empire,
Italy and the
United States. France, Russia and Britain 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 many international carriers, and was not at war with the Ottoman Empire at all. Therefore, 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.
Although the
Dominions and
Crown Colonies of the British Empire made significant contributions to the Allied war effort, they did not have independent foreign or defence policies during World War I. The Dominion governments controlled recruiting in their countries, and while they did not have operational control of their personnel, they did remove personnel from front line duties as they saw fit. Overall control was in the hands of the five-member
British War Cabinet (BWC). From early 1917 the BWC was superseded by the
Imperial War Cabinet, which had Dominion representation. Late in the war, the
First Australian Imperial Force and
Canadian Expeditionary Force were grouped in their own separate army corps, under the command of Australian and Canadian generals, who reported in turn to British generals.
In April 1918, operational control of all Allied forces on the
Western Front passed to the new supreme commander,
Maréchal de France Ferdinand Foch.
*
Kingdom of Armenia*
Kingdom of Serbia*
Russian Empire*
Third French Republic (including
French colonial forces)
*
Kingdom of Belgium (including
Belgian colonial forces)
*
British Empire**
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland **
Australia**
Canada**
New Zealand**
Newfoundland**
South Africa**
India**
British crown colonies*
Liberia*
Kingdom of Montenegro*
Japan*
Kingdom of Italy (1915)
*
Portugal*
Kingdom of Romania *
Kingdom of Greece*
United States of America (1917)
as well as:
*
San Marino*
Andorra*
Republic of China*
Brazil*
Bolivia*
Costa Rica*
Cuba*
Guatemala*
Haiti*
Honduras*
Ecuador*
Nicaragua*
Uruguay*
Panama*
Peru*
Siam(These are estimates of the cumulative number of different men in uniform 1914-1918, including army, navy and auxiliary forces. At any one time the armies were much smaller. Only a fraction of them were combat troops.)
*
Russian Empire: 12,000,000 men
*
British Empire: 8,904,500 men:*
Australia: 300,000 men (http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1.htm):*
Canada: 619,636 men (http://collections.ic.gc.ca/turner/ar_overview.html):*
India: 161,000 men:*
New Zealand: 100,000 men
*
France: 8,410,000 men
*
Italy: 5,615,000 men
*
United States: 4,355,000 men
*
Romania: 750,000 men
*
Serbia: 707,300 men
*
Belgium: 267,000 men
*
Greece: 230,000 men
*
Portugal: 100,000 men
*
Montenegro: 50,000 menTotal: 41,000,000 men
