The Great War: The World in Upheaval

Nations Choose Sides

The Drift Toward War• Nationalism creates a “place in the sun”

mentality– threatens the stability of Austro-Hungarian

Empire and Ottoman– combustible relationships between

Nationalist rivals grow with industrial, colonial and military competition

– fear of isolation leads to the Triple Alliance(Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and the Triple Entente(Great Britain. France and Russia)

New Alliances• Triple Alliance/Central

Powers grows out of close German/Austro-Hungarian relationship

• The Allies (Britain France and Russia sign a military pact in 1914

Kaiser Wilhelm• Personal interest in

naval escalation• Orders Krupp works

to increase weapon production

• Frustrated by British dominance in Africa

• Activated nationalist pride

“Whatever happens we have got,the Maxim gun and they have not”

• Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand “spark” that ignites rivalries

• Russia backs Pan-Slavism concept (self-determination)

• colonial disputes and competition fuel the fire

Small Spark Causes Great Conflagration

• Gavrilo Princip and The Black Hand

• Serbian Nationalism• Austro-Hungarian

power struggle• Germany supports

anti-Nationalist movements

War Plans

• The Schlieffen Plan

• swift knockout of France

• defensive action against Russia

• move 180,000 soldiers and supplies into France and Belgium

• French Plan XVII• ATTACK• series of offensive

plans without thought of enemies intentions or casualties

The Guns of August• New technologies

define the “Great War”

• Dreams of glory and honor Gott mit uns

• Declaration of war results in attach on Belgium

Global War• Alliance systems bring in one nation

after another– many nations had no idea what the fight

was about• Enormous scope of WWI creates terms

like homefront and total war• Technological advances create new

weapons of death– tanks, grenades, chemical gas,machine

guns, barbed wire and air warfare

Concerns of the Entente

• Cultural similarities of German, Austro-Hungary

• Worries over two-front war• Worries over English domination of the

sea• Worries over possibility of French attack,

Russian interference over Austrian Balkan policies

Trench Warfare and the Western Front

• August 1914, 20 million soldiers dispatched to the Western Front for “God, King and Country”

• both sides “dug in” in trenches which ran from the English Channel to Switzerland

• war of attrition fought for three years• stalemate forces use of new

technologies(p.980)

The Great War 1914-1918

The Horrors of Trench Warfare

Stalemate• Use of poisonous gas

to create advantage

• Air reconnaissance– “Ace fighters”

• Machine guns and repeating rifle no-man’s land

No Man’s Land

"But No Man's Land is a goblin sightWhen patrols crawl over at dead o' night;Boche or British, Belgian or French,You dice with death when you cross the trench“

• -James H. Adkin - No Man's Land

Manfred von Richthoven

The Red Baron

Brutality of New Warfare• Unprecedented casualities

• Verdun, 1916– 315,000 French killed– 280,000 German casualties – Less than 160,000 bodies recovered

• The Somme, British gain few thousand yards– 420,000 casualties– No significant strategic advantage

War Propaganda

Role of Public Opinion

• Beginning of media age• Availability of cheap newspapers• Little accountability• Awkward pressure on politicians

–Sacrifice diplomatic expediency for public support

USA Enters the War• US and the war economy

– Sale of goods to the Allies– Debts to American banks– US neutrality a mirage

• German blockade of British overseas trade• Submarine patrols• Sinking of Lusitania, 7 May 1915

– 1,198 lives lost (128 US)– Carried munitions

• US declares war April 1917

Americans Entering the War

End of the Great War

• U.S. Enters the war in 1917 as a response to German submarine warfare

• war leaves Europe’s peoples decimated/estimated 15 million casualties

• Treaty of Versailles leaves a bitter legacy– no Central Powers allowed to participate– Russia/Soviet Union not present because of

revolution– Germany punished heavily

The End of the Ottoman Empire• Treaty of Sèvres (1920) removes Balkan

and Arab provinces, allows for European occupation of south and east Anatolia

• Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) leads uprising against Sultanate, creates Republic of Turkey

• Allies recognize republic in Treaty of Lausanne (1923)

• Intensely secular government, women’s rights

Territorial changes in southwest Asia after the Great War

Treaty of Versailles• French demanded permanent weakening

of Germany– Germany must accept full guilt and

responsibility of the war– no navy or air force, army of only 100,000

troops for peacekeeping– Central Powers must pay reparations– no alliances

• Wilson accepts in order to pass his League of Nations

Revolution in Russia

• WWI decimates Russia • Tsar Nicholas II steps down in 1917• dedicated socialist Lenin uses Bolshevik

party to seize power and provide leadership to the workers (Source 991)

• under “Peace, Land and Bread” motto Lenin leads October revolution

Collapse of the Russian Empire• Russia: February Revolution, 1917• Germany smuggles Lenin into Provisional

Government Russia• October Revolution, creation of the USSR• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk cedes Poland, Baltic

countries, Ukraine to central Powers

Lenin