Download Chapter 23.1 Lecture Station - Waverly

Exploring American
History
Unit VII- The Beginning of Modern
America
Chapter 23 Section 1
The Road to War
The Road to War
The Big Idea
In 1914 tensions in Europe exploded into the deadliest war
the world had ever seen.
Main Ideas
• Many factors contributed to the outbreak of World War I.
• European nations suffered massive casualties in the war’s
early battles.
Causes of World War I
• No one event or person caused the Great War. There were
many factors that contributed to mobilization of the
belligerents
Five Major factors often identified
as causes of World War I (but not
causes of U.S. entry)
Militarism
Alliances
Imperialism
Nationalism
Events or Economics
Main Idea 1:
Many factors contributed to the outbreak
of World War I.
Nationalism
Imperialism
• Nationalism, a
strong sense of pride
and loyalty to one’s
nation or culture,
created tension
between nations.
• Nations competed
for control of
territories both in
Europe and
overseas.
• Austria-Hungary
included people from
many cultural groups.
• Germany took the
Alsace-Lorraine
region from
France in 1871,
and France
wanted it back.
• Slavic nationalists
wanted to break
away from AustriaHungary and join the
independent Slavic
country of Serbia.
Militarism
• Nations focused
resources on
militarism, the
aggressive
strengthening of
armed forces.
• Raced to build
armies and navies
• Made alliances to
protect
themselves
The Spark
• Feelings of fear and distrust grew among European powers
in the early 1900s.
• In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.
– Slavic nationalists resisted violently; wanted to be a part of
Serbia
• June 28, 1914: Archduke Francis Ferdinand of AustriaHungary was assassinated in Sarajevo.
– Killed by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip
• Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia
• Nations began to mobilize, or prepare their militaries, for
war.
Pulled into the Fighting
Allied Powers
• Russia, an ally of Serbia
• France, an ally of Russia
• Belgium, brought into the fighting because Germany
marched through it to get to France
• Great Britain, an ally of Belgium
Central Powers
• Austria-Hungary
• Germany, an ally of Austria-Hungary
The Great War- Two Sides
• Allied PowersTriple Entente
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Serbia
Russia
France
Great Britain
Belgium
Italy
Portugal
Greece
Japan
United States
• Central PowersTriple Alliance
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Austria-Hungary
Germany Empire
Bulgaria
Turkish Empire
Italy
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The Great War, as contemporaries called it -- was
the first man-made catastrophe of the 20th
century.
In the weeks after the assassination, none of the
critical leaders had the power or will to slow down
the decisions, actions, reactions and attitude shifts
of key government and military leaders.
By August, millions of Europeans -- especially the
military and diplomatic leaders of AustriaHungary, Germany and Russia -- saw war as the
way to save their honor, as well as to solve the
internal and international problems that needed
to be resolved.
World War I Begins - The Great War
• Kaiser Wilhelm II on July 5th
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•
pledged that Germany would
fully support Austria-Hungary
in any action against Serbia.
On July 23, 1914, AustriaHungary presented Serbia with
a lengthy list of demands.
On July 28, 1914, AustriaHungary declared war on
Serbia. World War I had
begun.
Schlieffen Plan
Schlieffen Plan
•
Both sides originally believed that the Great War
would be over quickly.
•
In Germany, this belief was based on a long
established war strategy called the Schlieffen Plan.
Start with a German army invading Belgium(avoiding
eastern French Forts) to reach Paris.
•
The German generals were so confident of success
that Kaiser Wilhelm II proclaimed that he would have
"Paris for lunch, St. Petersburg for dinner."
•
The plan required precise timing, with no
interruptions in the timetable -- its first objective was
to capture Paris in precisely 42 days, and force the
French to surrender. The German armies would then
shift their focus to the eastern front and defeat the
Russians before they were fully prepared to fight.
•
It started quickly on Aug. 2, 1914 with Germany
invading Luxembourg and Belgium, but the British,
French and Russians mobilized quicker than
expected.
Outbreak of War
• Define- What is nationalism?
• Identify Cause and Effect- Why
did other countries join the fight
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia?
• Analyze- How had European Nations
prepared for war?
Main Idea 2:
European nations suffered massive
casualties in the war’s early battles.
• The French army blocked the German advance at the
Marne River, east of Paris, in September 1914.
– The First Battle of Marne marked the first major battle of the
war.
– French and German forces faced each other along a long
battle line known as the western front.
• Russian and German armies struggled back and forth on
the eastern front.
• The war became a stalemate– a situation in which neither
side can win a decisive victory.
• Clear that this war would be longer than expected.
The First Battle of the Marne
• The German army quickly advanced through northern France and
after only one month of fighting were barely 25 miles from Paris.
• The French, however, would not give up.
The Battle
• The French launched a
counterattack along the Marne
River east of Paris on September
7, 1914.
• This battle became known as the
First Battle of the Marne.
• 2 million men fought on a
battle-front that stretched 125
miles.
• After five days and 250,000
deaths, the French had rallied
and pushed the Germans back
some 40 miles. 600 taxicabs
were even used to get men to
the front.
The Aftermath
• The French paid a heavy
price, as countless redcoated French troops had
fallen in the battle.
• Despite the loss of life, it
helped the Allies by giving
Russia more time to mobilize
for war.
• Once Russia mobilized,
Germany had to pull some
of its troops out of France
and send them to fight
Russia on the Eastern
Front, which stretched from
the Black Sea to the Baltic
Sea.
Stalemate
Poison gas attack, Flanders, Belgium
The War Reaches a Stalemate
• The First Battle of the Marne ended in a stalemate, and both French and
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German soldiers dug trenches, or deep ditches, to defend their positions and
seek shelter from enemy fire.
By late 1914, two massive systems of trenches stretched 400 miles across
Western Europe, and the battle lines known as the Western Front extended
from Switzerland to the North Sea.
Trench warfare, or fighting from trenches, was an old strategy that had been
used in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
This trench warfare, however, was different because of its scale.
– Soldiers lived in trenches, surrounded by machine-gun fire, flying grenades,
and exploding artillery shells.
– Opposing forces had machine guns pointed at enemy trenches at all times,
firing whenever a helmet or rifle appeared over the top.
– Thousands of men that ran into the area between the trenches, known as
“no-man’s-land,” were chopped down by enemy fire.
Neither the Allies nor the Germans were able to make significant advances,
creating a stalemate, or deadlock.
Technology of War
• Trench warfare, defending a position by fighting from the
protection of deep ditches, helped make the war long and
deadly.
Land
– Cold, wet, and muddy
– Disease ran rampant
• New technologies made land warfare even more deadly
– Machine guns
– Poison gases
– Tanks
• Airplanes used in large-scale battle for the first time
Air
Sea
– Fired down on soldiers in the trenches
– Gathered information on enemy locations
– Battled each other in the air in “dogfights”
• Fighting in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea
• Used Naval blockades and mines to block supply lines
• U-boats, German submarines, launched torpedoes against
Allied supply ships.
New Weapons of War
Poisonous Gas
Tanks
Airplanes
•
German military
scientists
experimented with
gas as a weapon.
• Both sides used
planes to map and
to attack
trenches from
above.
•
Gas in battle was
risky: Soldiers didn’t
know how much to
use, and wind
changes could
backfire the gas.
• When soldiers
began to carry gas
masks, they still
faced a stalemate.
• British forces soon
developed
armored tanks to
move into noman’s-land.
• Planes first
dropped bricks and
heavy objects on
enemy troops.
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Then Germans threw
canisters of gas into
the Allies’ trenches.
Many regretted using
gas, but British and
French forces
began using it too,
to keep things even.
• These tanks had
limited success
because many got
stuck in the mud.
• Germans soon
found ways to
destroy the tanks
with artillery fire.
• Soon they
mounted guns
and bombs on
planes.
• Skilled pilots
sought in air
battles called
dogfights.
• The German Red
Baron downed
80 Allied planes,
until he was shot
down.
A New Kind of Warfare
• Word of Germany’s invasion of Belgium quickly spread to France and other
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European nations.
French troops mobilized to meet approaching German divisions.
– They looked much as French soldiers did over 40 years earlier, wearing
bright red coats and heavy brass helmets.
– The German troops dressed in gray uniforms that worked as camouflage
on the battlefield.
French war strategy had not changed much since the 1800s.
– French soldiers marched row by row onto the battlefield, with bayonets
mounted to their field rifles, preparing for close combat with the Germans.
– The Germans, however, had many machine guns, and mowed down some
15,000 French troops per day in early battle.
– A well-trained German machine-gun team could set up equipment in four
seconds, and each machine gun matched the firepower of 50 to 100 French
rifles.
Many Europeans wrongly thought these technological advances would make
the war short and that France would be defeated in two months.
Trenches
Trenches
• The Allies used
four "types" of
trenches.
– The first, the
front-line trench
– support trench,
– reserve trench
– communication
trenches
Life in the Trenches
• Death
• Rat Infestation
• Frogs, Lice and Worse
• The Trench Cycle
• the Smell
Trenches- Suffering
• Trench Foot
• Trench Mouth
• Trench Fever
Trenches-
Self Inflicted wounds + Shell Shock
Early Battles of the War
• Make Inferences- What effect did having
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fronts in the west, north and east have on
the German and Russian Armies?
Evaluate- What is a possible reason that
soldiers felt safe in the trenches at the
onset of the war?
Describe- What was living in a trench
like?
Identify Cause and Effect- The arrival of
tanks ended what type of fighting
technique?
Early Battles of the War
• Explain- How did the Germans
respond to the British port
blockade?
• Predict- What do you think
neutral countries might do after
German U-boats attacked their
ships?
Total War and Slaughter
World War I Casualties
Allies
Central Powers
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Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
Italy 680,000
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Japan 1,344
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65 million mobilized both sides
Montenegro 3,000
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8.5 million killed
Portugal 8,145
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21 million wounded
Romania 300,000
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7.7 million POW’s and missing
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37million total casualties
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57% of all men mobilized
Belgium 45,550
British Empire 942,135
France 1,368,000
Greece 23,098
Russia 1,700,000
Serbia 45,000
United States 116,516
Bulgaria 87,495
Germany 1,935,000
Ottoman Empire 725,000
Total Casualties
Over the Top - An Interactive Adventure
15 min or the entire period.
• Over The Top
Weapons of World War I
If there is time
Rifles
Rifles, Bayonets and Hand guns
There was undeniably
psychological value to the
infantry in carrying a bayonet,
even if in practice it was seldom
used. Bayonets continued to be
commonly issued in the Second
World War.
Hand guns
French
German
Luger
Colt 45
Machine Gun
Machine Gun
Poison Gas
• Country
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Casualties
Deaths
Austria-Hungary 100,000
3,000
British Empire
88,706
8,109
France
190,000
8,000
Germany
200,000
9,000
Italy
60,000
4,627
Russia 419,340
56,000
USA
72,807
1,462
Others
10,000
1,000
Poison Gas
Poison Gas
•Mustard Gas
Poison Gas- Mustard Gas effects
Tanks
Tanks
Flame-throwers
During the war the Germans
launched in excess of 650
flame-thrower attacks; no
numbers exist for British or
French attacks.
Grenades
Mortars and Artillery
Blimps
• The Zeppelin
Airplanes
• ‘dogfights’
• interrupter
equipment
Poison Gas