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World War I
The Fall of Empires
Dr. Michael Weaver
UTPA
The most significant historical
event of the 20th century?
• The Russian Empire collapses and the
Soviet Union is born.
• The Austro-Hungarian Empire is
dismembered.
• Germany loses her Empire, and is
embittered – leading to World War II.
• Britain’s reign as the World’s great military
and economic power is finished.
• Economic devastation sets up the “Great
Depression”
• The U.S. emerges as a world superpower.
• The Ottoman Empire collapses.
• Chaos, conflicting promises, and the
redistribution of territory in the Middle East
creates the events that have produced the
on-going “Arab-Israeli Conflict”.
Major Causes
• The RussoJapanese War
(1904-1905 ) – After a
humiliating defeat,
Russia looks to the
west to expand her
influence… the
Balkans.
Major Causes
• the Franco-Prussian War (1870): Germany
humiliates France and seizes the provinces of
Alsace and Lorraine.
Major Causes
“Entangling Alliances”:
The Triple Alliance
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy
The Triple Entente
France, Russia, Great Britain
Secondary Causes
• A naval arms race between Britain and
Germany, over the construction of
Dreadnoughts, increases tensions.
Secondary Causes
• New Imperialism:
competition for new
colonies (including
“the scramble for
Africa”) increases
tensions in Europe.
Secondary Causes
• Nationalism
In the older sense of the
word – loyalty to your
ethnic group – and
the belief that each
ethnicity should have
its own nation.
Secondary Causes
Lessons “learned” from the Austro-Prussian
and Franco-Prussian Wars:
• Modern industrial wars end quickly
• If a nation mobilizes more quickly than its
opponents, the quicker nation will win.
Germany’s Schlieffen Plan
• Strike west against
France with the bulk of
Germany’s might.
• In the East, fight a
holding action against
Russia – fall back slowly.
• When France surrenders,
transfer troops from the
West Front to the East
Front and finish off
Russia
1914
• The West: The
German drive in the
West failed to take
Paris (halted at the
Battle of the Marne);
both sides dig in and
trench warfare
begins.
1914
The East: Russian forces advancing
into Germany are smashed at
Tannenberg; subsequently, German
and Austrian forces pushed into
Russia.
1915
• The stalemate continued. Britain attempted to
attack Central powers through their “soft
underbelly”, landing forces at Gallipoli in an
attempt to open another front against the Turks.
The landings failed.
Gallipoli - 1915
Gallipoli - 1915
1916
• The stalemate continued:
• A British offensive at the Somme fails;
• A Russian offensive against the Austrians
succeeds briefly, then falters when it runs
out of supplies.
• A German offensive at Verdun fails to
punch through French defenses.
1917
• March the Russian Revolution begins; the
provisional government attempts to
continue the war effort, but in November a
second revolution brings the Bolsheviks
to power. In December the Russians
signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with
Germany and the Central Powers.
1917
• On 6 April, U.S.
President Woodrow
Wilson, motivated by
Germany’s policy of
unrestricted
submarine warfare
and the Zimmerman
Telegram, signed a
resolution declaring
war on Germany.
1918
• 1918: The last German offensive began on 21
March; it utilized troops freed by Russia’s
withdrawal from the War. The Allied line broke
initially, and German troops pushed to within 75
miles of Paris. Then the allies stabilized the line,
and on 18 July British, French and U.S. troops
counter-attacked. On 6 October Germany and
Austria-Hungary asked Wilson for an armistice;
the Ottoman Empire did the same on the 14th.
New technology
• Predictions that the war would be short
proved catastrophically inaccurate. The
American Civil War was the model
generals and politicians should have
looked at, not the Austro-Prussian and
Franco-Prussian Wars. The war proved
so expensive in men and material in part
because of the new technologies
employed (and old technology used in new
ways).
Poison Gas
Machine guns and barbed wire
Aircraft (primary purpose:
reconnaissance)
Tanks
U-boats
Fatalities
• France 1.4 million
Austria-Hungary 1.1 million
• Great Britain & Empire 1 million
Germany 2 million
• Russia 1.7 million
the Ottoman Empire 450,000
• Italy 500,000
• U.S.A. 116,000
The End of the War – What
Happened?!
• The German Spring 1918 offensive failed
to break the allied line, and by July the
allies were counter-attacking, using tanks
and American reinforcements.
• There was growing anti-war sentiment in
Germany, particularly among laborers
(ironically, caused by Germany’s harsh
treatment of the new Russian government)
What Happened?!
• German military planners had been keeping detailed
statistics on army recruitment and military losses,
for Germany, her allies, and her opponents. They
knew that the German army had reached its peak
size in the Summer of 1918 - from that point onwards
new recruitment would be unable to replace losses.
They knew France had peaked in 1917, and that
Great Britain would peak in the Summer of 1918, at
the same time Germany reached her peak. But the
American forces would be steadily growing (by the
Summer American forces were arriving at a rate of
250,000 a month), so the strength of Germany and
her allies would start declining after the Summer of
1918 while her enemies would be growing stronger.
What Happened?!
Given these statistics, an eventual defeat of
the Central Powers seemed inevitable;
additionally, German workers were no longer
reliably supportive of the war effort.
Accordingly, it made sense to German High
Command to seek an end to the war
immediately, before enemy troops crossed
into Germany itself (why allow the German
civilian population to be harmed – and the
economic infrastructure damaged – it the war
was un-winnable anyway?).
What Happened?!
• Allied generals urged an invasion of
Germany, but the recommendation was
politically unacceptable because of the
casualties that would have resulted.
• When rumors that the German government
was seeking an armistice leaked, German
civilian and military morale collapsed,
leaving Germany on no position to continue
fighting even when the armistice terms
proved harsh.
Results?
The fact that the war ended when
German troops were in enemy territory,
and Germany herself had not been
invaded, allowed a myth to develop
after the war that Germany had been
winning the war, and that she had been
betrayed from within.
The Treaty of Versailles
Only one of several treaties ending the war:
• St. Germain - Austria
• Trianon - Hungary
• Neuilly - Bulgaria
• Sevres - Turkey
• Versailles - Germany
The Paris Peace Talks
The “Big Four”
Georges Clemenceau
Goals:
• The return of AlsaceLorraine
• Security against German
aggression in the future
(ideally a firm alliance
with the U.S. and Britain)
• Reparations - payment
for damages done to
France.
David Lloyd George
Goals:
• Reparations!
• Don’t weaken
Germany so badly
she will be
vulnerable to
Bolshevism
• Reparations!!
Woodrow Wilson
Goals:
• “Peace without
victors”
• The spread of
democracy
• National self
determination
• Creation of a
League of Nations
Vittorio Orlando
Goals:
• Territorial
acquisitions
(primarily from
Austria)
• Reparations
Terms
• Alsace-Lorraine were returned to France
• The Rhineland was demilitarized, and French and
Belgium troops moved in as an occupying force for
15 years.
• France was given control of the coal mines in the
Saar Basin, although the region remained part of
Germany.
• Some territory in East Germany was granted to the
new State of Poland; East Prussia was cut off from
the rest of Germany. The main purpose of this
territorial shift was to give Poland a “corridor to the
sea”, to make the state more economically viable
Terms
• The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was annulled
• Germany lost all of her colonies.
• The Treaty placed severe limitations on
the German armed forces.
• Germany was forbidden to unite with
Austria.
• Germany assumed guilt for the war and
was required to pay reparations.
The Treaty – the popular view
• You too have the
right of selfdetermination: do
you want us to pick
your pockets before
your execution, or
after?
The Popular Interpretation
Clemenceau:
Curious! I seem to
hear a child
weeping!”
A Fair Interpretation?
• Germany had required steep reparations from
France at the end of the Franco-Prussian War;
France paid them… early.
• Total German territorial losses, including the
Polish Corridor and Alsace-Lorraine, amounted
to about 13.5% of her 1914 territory and 10% of
her population. Compare to the Treaty of BrestLitovsk, where Russia would have lost roughly a
third of its population! Germany was treated
more lightly than she treated Russia.
• The reparations amount was based
on estimated costs of the war –
punitive amounts originally
considered were dropped. The “War
Guilt Clause” was added to appease
popular opinion in Britain and France
about reduced demands for
reparations.
Germany might have been treated
more leniently, except:
• A u-boat sank the Irish Mail packet Leinster,
at a cost of 451 lives (many civilians), while
the Germans were negotiating the armistice.
• Germany troops deliberately destroyed
French coal mines in the Pas-de-Calais and
Nord departments during the closing days of
the war – again, while the Germans were
negotiating the armistice.
“To those who are saying that the Treaty is bad
and should never have been made and that it
will involve Europe in infinite difficulties in its
enforcement, I feel like admitting it....I would also
say in reply that empires cannot be shattered
and new states raised upon their ruins without
disturbance”.
-Col. Edward M. House
(advisor to President Wilson)