The War to End all Wars: World

War I and its Revolutionary

Aftermath

Causes of

The Great

War

Why is it technically called the Great War,

not World War I?

• WWII hadn’t happened yet

• Otto von Bismark predicted there would be a “Great War,” starting in the East, but he would not live to see it

Europe before War • 6 Great Powers: Germany, Great

Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy

• Been through 30 years of peace: why? – Congress of Vienna – Peace Organizations – Governments committed to Pacifism

• Hague Tribunal Created: World Courts situated in the Netherlands

– Settles disputes between nations (weak but a step forward towards countries working together to solve problems)

• But forces were at work towards ending peace

4 Causes of WWI

• Remember MAIN – Militarism – Alliances – Imperialism – Nationalism

Nationalism: Tensions Rise • What is Nationalism?

– Caused people of same culture/history to unite for independence • Ex: Balkan nations -

countries on Balkan peninsula (above Greece) – fighting for independence from Austria-Hungary or Ottoman Turks

– Balkan Wars in 1912: new country of Serbia and others fighting amongst themselves for control of lands becomes the “Powder Keg of Europe” Meaning?

Nationalism: Tensions Rise

– Caused nation-states to compete for land and resources • Countries proud of their colonies

and industrial power • Ex: What land did Germany take

from France? – Alsace and Lorraine: – France wanted revenge

Imperialism: Economic Rivals

• Germany became industrial powerhouse (over England)

• European nations competing for colonies where? – Germany gains colonies in

Central Africa • France and England

nervous over German power

• Makes the conflict global rather than concentrated in Europe

Alliances: All tangled up • Germany knows France

will want revenge – 1882: Forms Triple Alliance

with Austria-Hungary and Italy

• France responds with own alliance to England in 1894 – Why would England agree? – Entente: nonbinding

agreement to follow common policies - Close diplomatic and military ties

– Russia signs similar agreement with England too

Alliances: All tangled up • Russia feels close

cultural ties to Balkans – Both Slavic peoples – Duty to defend Slavic

nations, especially new Serbia, against large empires to their E and W: Austria-Hungary and Ottomans

Militarism • Militarism: glorified war – Romantic view of

traditional warfare • How did Germany invest

its industrial money? • Caused an arms race: race

to have the biggest and best military

Critical Thinking Assignment • Based on all the other reason for the beginning of

WWI, why would an arms race begin? (3 sentences a piece) – Nationalism and Social Darwinism? – Imperialism? – Alliances?

A Powder Keg Explodes

The Beginnings of WWI

Problems in the Balkans

• Serbia wants to unify other Serbs outside their boarders in the Balkans especially Bosnia – What country supports this move?

• 1908 Austria-Hungary takes control of Bosnia – Serbian nationalists in Bosnia

unite creating a militant nationalist group called The Black Hand

Little Serbia explodes

• June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sofia visit Sarajevo (Bosnia’s capital) – Black Hands plan

assasination – Almost thwarted but

Gavrilo Princip 19yr old member killed Ferdinand and his wife

Austria’s Response

• Places harsh demands on Serbia to investigate and charge all Serbian nationals who attempt political violence – Serbia agrees to most but not

all Austria’s demands • Austria seeks advice from

German Ally – Germany argues to treat Serbia

harshly, giving their blank check of support

• Austria declares war on Serbia July 1914 – Big empire against little

Serbia…over in no time right?

Alliances Tangle

• Russia holds true to its word to

protect Slavic peoples – Asks Austria-Hungary to back down,

Austria refuses

– Russia mobilizes for war

• Who then declares war on Russia?

– Russia appeals to its French Ally

• France hates Germany so backs

Russia

• Germany declares war on France

– Italy and Great Britain attempt

neutrality: supporting neither side

Chief Check 4/25 1. First complete the

map to the left

then answer the

following

question in at

least 6 complete

sentences.

2. Using the 4

MAIN causes of

WWI, describe

how Serbia

started the War.

3. You have until

8:35 to complete

both

Schlieffen Plan ends

Neutrality

• While other Europeans aligned in the late

1800s, Belgium signed a Neutrality pact with

all nations

• In 1914 who has Germany declared war with? – What is the problem with this?

• Surrounded facing a 2 front war

Schlieffen Plan ends Neutrality

– To avoid this General Alfred Von Schlieffen plans to quickly invade France by attacking behind their lines

– Takes advantage of Russia’s lack of industrialization and need for more time to ready for war • To do this must invade

Neutral Belgium and swing around

• August 3, 1914 invades – Great Britain outraged at

invasion of Neutral territory: declares war on Germany

Who Killed the peace of Europe?

What point is this American cartoonist making about the events leading up to the war?

The Glory of War Fades

The Battle Lines are Drawn

• Triple Alliance ~> turns into Central Powers – Why called Central?

• Located in the Middle

of Europe

– Germany,

Austria-Hungary

– Minus Italy

– Plus Bulgaria and

Ottoman Empire to rival

Serbia

(to get their land back)

The Battle Lines are Drawn Continued

• Triple Entente~> turns into Allied

Powers – Great Britain, France,

Russia

– Plus Japan

– Plus Italy

The Western

Front

The Western Front

• A region in Northern France, along its border with

Germany, that became deadlocked between the

Allied and Central Powers. – By Fall of 1914

NO one was

winning

The First Battle of the Marne

• Germany does well – pushes near Paris – Allies regroup

• French hold off long enough for British solders to join taxing in (literally) new soldiers

– Defeat Germany

• Important because – Ruined Schlieffen Plan

• Held Germany off long enough for Russia to mobilize (mobilizes quicker than expected)

• Creates a 2 Front War for Germany

1. Why did Russia help Serbia?

2. Why did France want to join in the War against

Germany?

3. List the 4 Central Powers

4. List the 3 largest Allied Powers.

5. Where is the Western Front?

6. What caused Belgium to join the war for the

Allies?

7. What was the effect of the First Battle of the

Marne?

Chief Check 4/26

Trenches of the

Western Front

Trench Warfare • “The men slept in mud, washed in mud, ate mud,

dreamed mud” ~soldier • “Shells of all calibers kept raining on our sector. The

trench disappeared, filled with earth...the earth was unbreathable. Our blinded, wounded, crawling, and shouting soldiers kept falling on top of us & died splashing us with blood. It was living hell.”

• They shared their food with rats, their beds with lice •

Trench

Warfare Cont’ • Western Front called “Terrain of Death”

• 1915: dug miles of parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire

• Waited for call to enter “no man’s land” desolate war torn land between trenches (no houses, no roads, nothing left between the trenches)

• Goal: attack in no man’s land and take over enemy trenches, eventually gaining land

• By Winter 1914: millions dead but stalemate between sides

New Weapons

End Romantic

View of

Warfare

New Weapons • 5 New (or improved) weapons of World War I

...video – Poison Gas – Machine Guns – Tanks – Submarine (called U-boats) – Planes

• Didn’t deliver the quick war Europeans wanted – Just killed more people more easily

Poison Gas

• Introduced by Germans

but used by all caused

blindness, blisters, and

death

Machine Guns

• Improved, automatically wiped out waves of

people in “No Man’s Land”

Tanks • Introduced in 1916 by British:

could pass through No Man’s

Land without threatening as

many lives

• Top speed...5 mph (now 65)

Submarines: “Unterseeboot” • Called U-boats for short, developed by

Germans...used underwater torpedoes to shoot

allied supply ships

Planes

• Used for scoping land, attacking enemy planes, photography, etc.

• German: zeppelins (blimps bombing allied forces)

How successful were

these new methods?

• At the beginning of 1916 600,000 people had

died on the Western Front

• By November of 1916 1 million people had died

• What did they gain from his loss of life?

• Britain: Moved 5 miles into German lands

• Germany: Moved 4 miles into Allied lands

Impact of a Global Conflict

Total War

• WWI became a Total War in Europe: A war were ALL resources and available people were mobilized and used during the war effort – Conscription Began: “The Draft” to

relieve shortages of troops by requiring all young men to be ready for military service

– Food and Resource Rationing for the war effort

– Propaganda: Promoting a cause or damaging an opposing cause • Exaggerating and “advertizing the

war”

Meat less Mondays and Wheat less

Wednesdays

• “Hate by water and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand; We love as one, we hate as one; We have one foe and one alone- ENGLAND!” – German Ernest Lissauer “Hymn of Hate”

Women on the Home Front

• Women must Mobilize to keep the home front afloat – Worked in factories

manufacturing weapons and supplies

– Joined Branches of the military behind the front lines

– Grew food to meet shortages

• What do you think the effects of this effort was?

Global Conflict • Russia:

– How was Russia’s industrialization compared to the rest of Europe? • Effect:

– Suffered great casualties but continued to throw peasants at the front lines

• Italy – Secretly agrees to join allies in

exchange for land that was inhabited by Italians but ruled by Austrians

– Crushed by Central Powers • Japan

– Sides with Allies to gain German spheres of influence in Pacific

• Colonies – How did the colonies help?

Effect?

Effects of Total War

• Collapsing Morale – Bankruptcy, teenagers

in war, food shortages, and unending casualties killed romance of war • Troops rebel • Revolutions occur

within countries including Russia and Germany

Russian March Revolution: Causes

• Moderates pressured Czar Nicolas II for a constitution and representational government, Nicolas refused to relinquish any control

• Poor transportation and industry left soldiers vulnerable on the front lines, Czar Nicolas II (with little military experience) decides to run the military himself…How successful would this be?

March Revolution Continued

– Leaves his German wife Alexandria in control, who quickly gives real power to an uneducated “holy man” by the name Rasputin whose leadership involved keeping those who flattered him the most

– Lead to food shortages and additional casualties

• March 1917 women march for what?(Like in French Revolution)

• Czar forced to step down and weak republic created

Bolshevik Revolution in Russia

• November 1917 – Republic had continued the war

effort leading to new causalities and rebellions on the front lines

– Peasants, still without land rights, took matters into their own hands driving away landowners

– Bolsheviks (communist revolutionaries in Russia) run by Vladimir Lenin seek to overthrow republic • Red Guards: armed factory

workers and angry Russian sailors overthrown the government with little fighting

• Create a “dictatorship of the Proletariat” : From this how is it the same and different from Marx’s communism?

“War Communism”

• 3 years of civil war rippled throughout Russia between the Reds for Communism and the Whites for the czar.

• Lenin and his right-hand-man Trotsky turned to “War Communism” where business by busniess, farm by farm, they took over land, abolishing private property, and forcing workers to labor for the state – Wicked tactics and punishments for

not meeting quotas or for army quadrants who didn’t perform including assassinations

– 1921 Peace hits a tattered Russia which Lenin must fix

– How do you think the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution effected WWI?

Doughboys Finish

the Job US enter WWI

3 Causes ending U.S. Neutrality

1. Cultural Ties: • Most of the US

supported Allies due to similar cultures, history, and language with Great Britain • 2 Groups did

not who? Why?

2. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare: – Germans attacked

U.S. Convoys (Merchant ships carrying US citizens surrounded by warships for protection) • Ships were often

carrying Allied Supplies

• Sinking of the British Lusitania 1915: carried and killed 128 Americans

3. Zimmermann Note 1917 tips the Scales: – German foreign minister

Arthur Zimmerman asked Mexican Ambassador for Mexican support in exchange for returning Southwestern US lost during Mexican American War

– British intercepted the note and inform President Woodrow Wilson

Americans Enter the War

• Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany…they do and 2 million troops enter Europe by January 1918 – “A War to make the world safe for

democracy…a war to end all wars”

• Fresh Start for the Allies: – Morale Boost – Supplies

• Pushed the Central Powers into Submission – Hungry citizens rebel in Germany – Austria-Hungary teetering on

collapse

• Sign Armistice (agreement to end all fighting) on November 11, 1918

Paris Peace Conference

Treaties Between Allies and Central Powers

Wilson: Forever

devoted to Peace • Wilson created “The

Fourteen Points” as gage for Peace Talks – 14 points to avoiding world

conflict again • Freedom of the sea and

trade • Reducing arms • Ending secret treaties • Self-determination: Which

is? • Create a “League of

Nations”- Association of nations that would work together to promote peace

– Begins after WWI – Weak – US Congress wants to

revert back to Isolationism (keeping out of foreign affairs) and does not allow the United States to join

The Treaty of Versailles • Treaty Between

Germany and Allies – Britain and France ignore

Wilson’s goal of “peace without victory” and blame Germany for the entire war

– Weakened Germany FORCED to sign Treaty of Versailles

– Major Points: • Germany takes full

responsibility • Must pay reparations

(payments for war damages) including physical damages as well as pensions for allied soldiers and widows

• Forced them to disarm

• Alsace and Lorraine returned to France

• Lost German land and all colonies (Britain and France split these colonies)

Paris Peace Talks :Continued Dissatisfaction • Austria-Hungary’s empire

dissolved – New nations of Austria,

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia (split based mostly on language)

• Russia – Left out of talks due to its own

revolution – Lands of Poland, Latvia,

Lithuania, and Estonia given independence from Russia

• Which of Wilson’s 14 points was utilized in Europe to create these new nations?

• How do you think these decisions could affect European relationships to come?