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Key People of World War I

Emperors and presidents, generals and admirals, pilots, poets and ordinary soldiers. These are the people who started, fought, ended and remembered the Great War, each with a real portrait from the time.

Woodrow Wilson

Kaiser Wilhelm II

John J. Pershing

Ferdinand Foch

Quick facts

Who’s who at a glance

	United States	President Woodrow Wilson; Gen. John J. Pershing (AEF)
	Britain	Prime Ministers H. H. Asquith, then David Lloyd George (Dec. 1916); Gens. Sir John French, then Sir Douglas Haig
	France	Premier Georges Clemenceau (from Nov. 1917); Gens. Joffre, Pétain, Nivelle; Marshal Foch (Allied supreme commander, 1918)
	Russia	Tsar Nicholas II (abdicated March 1917)
	Germany	Kaiser Wilhelm II; Gens. Moltke, Falkenhayn, then Hindenburg and Ludendorff
	Austria-Hungary	Emperor Franz Joseph (died 1916), then Emperor Karl I
	Ottoman Empire	Enver Pasha (war minister); Mustafa Kemal at Gallipoli

The big picture in 30 seconds

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Allied leadersPresidents, premiers and a tsar Allied commandersThe generals who won Central PowersEmperors and generals Heroes and legendsAces, soldiers, nurses, poets

The Allies

Allied leaders

The political leaders who took their nations through the war and wrote the peace.

Woodrow Wilson

1856–1924

28th U.S. President

Won reelection in 1916 on “He kept us out of war,” then asked for war in April 1917. His Fourteen Points and League of Nations shaped the peace; the Senate rejected both.

David Lloyd George

1863–1945

British Prime Minister

As minister of munitions he fixed the 1915 shell shortage. Prime minister from December 1916, he drove the war effort and was one of the Big Four at Paris.

Georges Clemenceau

1841–1929

French Premier

“The Tiger” became premier at 76 in November 1917 and vowed to fight to the end. He pushed for a harsh peace on Germany.

Tsar Nicholas II

1868–1918

Emperor of Russia

Took personal command of the army in 1915. Defeats and hunger led to revolution; he abdicated in 1917 and was killed with his family in 1918.

The Allies

Allied commanders

The generals who held the line and then won the war in 1918.

John J. Pershing

1860–1948

Commander, AEF

“Black Jack” Pershing built an American army of two million in France and led it at St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne.

Ferdinand Foch

1851–1929

Allied Supreme Commander

Fought at the Marne and the Somme, then coordinated all Allied armies from 1918 and dictated the Armistice terms.

Joseph Joffre

1852–1931

French commander-in-chief

Calm “Papa Joffre” won the First Battle of the Marne in 1914 and led the French army until late 1916.

Douglas Haig

1861–1928

British commander-in-chief

Led the British in France from December 1915 through the Somme, Passchendaele and the victorious Hundred Days.

Philippe Pétain

1856–1951

French general

The defender of Verdun. In 1917 he calmed the mutinies in the French army by improving soldiers’ conditions.

Joseph Gallieni

1849–1916

Military governor of Paris

Sent troops to the Marne in Paris taxis and helped turn the battle in September 1914.

Sir Ian Hamilton

1853–1947

Commander at Gallipoli

Led the failed 1915 landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula and was recalled in October.

Henry Rawlinson

1864–1925

British Fourth Army

Planned the Somme attack of 1916, then led the great Allied breakthrough at Amiens in August 1918.

The Central Powers

Emperors and generals of the Central Powers

Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and their commanders.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

1859–1941

German Emperor

Encouraged Austria-Hungary in July 1914. Sidelined by his generals as the war went on, he abdicated on November 9, 1918.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

1863–1914

Heir to Austria-Hungary

Shot with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Ironically, he had favored peace and more rights for the Slavs.

Paul von Hindenburg

1847–1934

German chief of staff (1916–1919)

The victor of Tannenberg in 1914 became a national idol. Later president of Germany, he appointed Hitler chancellor in 1933.

Erich Ludendorff

1865–1937

German quartermaster general

The real brain behind Hindenburg. He planned the 1918 Spring Offensive and later spread the myth that Germany was “stabbed in the back.”

Helmuth von Moltke

1848–1916

German chief of staff (1906–1914)

Launched the invasion of Belgium and France in 1914 and was replaced after the defeat at the Marne.

Erich von Falkenhayn

1861–1922

German chief of staff (1914–1916)

Planned the Battle of Verdun. Later commanded armies in Romania and Palestine.

Mustafa Kemal

1881–1938

Ottoman commander

Stopped the Allies at Gallipoli in 1915. As Atatürk he founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Otto Liman von Sanders

1855–1929

German general in Ottoman service

Organized the Ottoman defense of Gallipoli and later commanded in Palestine.

Heroes and legends

Aces, soldiers, nurses and poets

Some of the war’s most famous people never commanded an army.

Alvin C. York

1887–1964

U.S. Army sergeant

On October 8, 1918, in the Argonne, he silenced a nest of machine guns and captured 132 Germans. Medal of Honor.

Eddie Rickenbacker

1890–1973

American ace

A race-car driver turned fighter pilot, he shot down 26 enemy aircraft with the 94th Aero Squadron, the top U.S. score of the war.

Manfred von Richthofen

1892–1918

“The Red Baron”

Germany’s top ace, with 80 victories, flew a red Fokker triplane. Shot down and killed in April 1918.

T. E. Lawrence

1888–1935

“Lawrence of Arabia”

British officer who fought alongside the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, raiding the Hejaz Railway and entering Damascus in 1918.

Henry Johnson

1892–1929

Harlem Hellfighters, 369th Infantry

Fought off a German raiding party in May 1918 despite many wounds. France gave him the Croix de Guerre; the U.S. awarded the Medal of Honor in 2015.

Edith Cavell

1865–1915

British nurse

Helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium. Executed by a German firing squad in October 1915, causing worldwide outrage.

John McCrae

1872–1918

Canadian doctor and poet

Wrote In Flanders Fields in May 1915 after a friend died at Ypres. The poem made the poppy the symbol of remembrance.

J. R. R. Tolkien

1892–1973

British signals officer

Fought at the Somme in 1916. Memories of the trenches echo through The Lord of the Rings.

Making the peace

The Big Four at Paris, 1919

Leaders from about 30 nations met in Paris from January 1919, but four men made the big decisions: Woodrow Wilson of the United States, David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. Wilson wanted a fair peace built on his Fourteen Points and a League of Nations. Clemenceau wanted security for France and for Germany to pay. Lloyd George was caught in between. The Germans were not allowed to negotiate.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after the shots in Sarajevo.

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