M

A

I

N

Militarism – all countries hoped to demonstrate that they had come out of the Industrial Revolution as the strongest power

Alliances- designed to prevent war, but can you see the paradox?

Imperialism- Who would get the most valuable colonies?

Nationalism- Our race is the ‘fittest’

• A Serbian Nationalist assassinated Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand.

• Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia

• All alliances were drawn into the war

Allies/Triple Entente

• France

• Russia

• Great Britain

• Serbia

Central Powers/Triple Alliance

• Austria-Hungary

• Germany

• Ottoman Empire

• Italy switched sides to the Allies during the course of the war

• United States joined the allies in 1917

•Neutrality, at First

•Many Americans of all European background German, British, Russian, etc.

• Investments:

• American business loaned 2.25 billion dollars to the Allies

•Very little to Central Powers

• Allies lose = loss of money causes some to lean towards allies

•Germans become bad guys:

•They attacked first and brutally crushed tiny Belgium

•Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare (u-boats) to fight British blockade

•Cruise ship – the Lusitania – was sunk - 128 Americans died

• Zimmerman Telegram:

• Germany sent a note

to Mexico encouraging

them to join the Central

Powers and attack the U.S.

• Germany promised

them American territory

• U.S. intercepted telegram

•This should make more sense than it did in your World History course. Why?

•We know about U.S. intervention in Mexico right before the war (Pancho Villa, etc.)

Russia Collapses

• Russia and Germany are monarchies –

• Remaining Allies are all democracies

• Allows the U.S. to say we are joining WWI for democracy, not just for money

United States Declares war in April 1917

• War was fought on fronts

• Trench war was fought on the Western Front

• Many new weapons were developed such as machine guns and submarines

• Liberty Bonds:

• bonds sold to the public to finance the war – raised over $20 billion

• Government Control of the Economy:

• President Wilson created agencies to oversee domestic production

• production of all goods was managed by the government to aid war effort

• ways to preserve energy were also instituted (beginning of daylight savings)

• Enforcing Loyalty:

• fear of spies, specifically Germans

• rise of discrimination and nativism

• enacted policies to enforce loyalty (Espionage & Sedition Act) that violated First Amendment’s free speech

• Women and Minorities:

• war had limited labor pool by ending immigration and sending white males to the war

• job opportunities opened up for minorities, specifically African and Mexican Americans, and women•Great Migration of southern black to the north to find greaterequality and WWI related jobs

• U.S. sends 2 million troops to fight exhausted Central Power

• Germany surrenders on November 11, 1918

• Flu Epidemic Sweeps World

• estimated that half a million Americans died and 30 million people worldwide died in less than a year

U.S. Is Now Clearly a Great World Power, if not the World Power

• Allies had purchased billions of dollars worth of stuff from the U.S.

• Now had to repay it • European powers are weakened, U.S. is

strengthened • In the post war treaty, the U.S. called for leniency

towards Germany, but this plan was rejected (by who?) in favor of harsh punishment and reparations– France and Britain – Reparations = $ paid by those responsible for a war