Download 1-World War I

World War I
1914-1918
It was "The War To
End All Wars,"
- a senseless
slaughter that set
the stage for the
bloodiest century
in human history.
The Great War
I. Setting the Stage
An Uneasy Peace
 At the turn of the 20th Century, the nations of
Europe had been at peace with one another
for nearly 30 years.
 However, below the surface, several forces
were at work that would help propel Europe
into war.
Long-Term Causes of WWI
 1. Nationalism, or a deep
devotion to one’s nation.
 Nationalism can serve as
a unifying force within a
country. However, it can
also cause intense
competition between
nations, with each
seeking to overpower the
other.
 What kinds of things can
nations compete over?
Long-Term Causes of WWI
 2. Imperialism, or
larger nations
controlling weaker
nations and territories.
 The nations of Europe
competed fiercely for
colonies in Asia and
Africa which
sometimes pushed
them to the brink of
war.
Long-Term Causes of WWI
 3. Militarism, the the development of armed forces
and their use as a tool for diplomacy.
 The nations of Europe believed that to be truly
great, they needed to have a powerful military.
Long-Term Causes of WWI
 4. Alliance System,
treaties of countries to
support one another in
case of attack.
 The Triple Alliance joined
Germany, Italy and
Austria-Hungary.
 In turn, Britain, France,
and Russia join the Triple
Entente.
 A dispute between two
rival powers could draw
the entire continent into
war.
An Assassination Leads to War
 Nowhere was that dispute
more likely to occur than
on the Balkan Peninsula.
 This mountain peninsula
in the southeastern corner
of Europe was home to an
assortment of ethnic
groups.
 With a long history of
nationalist uprisings and
ethnic clashes, the
Balkans were known as
the “powder keg” of
Europe.
An Assassination Leads to War
 On June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austrian
throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was
assassinated by a Serbian rebel.
 Austria-Hungary declared what it expected
to be a “bright, brisk little war” against
Serbia.
An Assassination Leads to War
 A war between Austria and
Serbia meant a war between
Austria and Russia, Serbia's
traditional ally.
 That meant war between
Russia and Germany.
 And that meant war between
Germany and France.
 And that meant war between
Germany and Great Britain.
 In a flash, the whole continent
was at war.
II. War Consumes
Europe
The Schlieffen Plan
 Germany quickly put its
military plan into effect.
 Under the Schlieffen Plan, a
large part of the German army
would race west, to defeat
France, and then fight Russia in
the east.
 The German army would avoid
France’s line fortifications by
sweeping west through neutral
Belgium and then turning in a
huge arc south into France. The
French army would be
destroyed defending Paris.
Europeans Take Sides
 By mid-August 1914, the battle lines were
clearly drawn.
 Central Powers – Germany, AustriaHungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman
Empire
 Allies – Great Britain, France, Russia,
Japan, and Italy.
Europeans Take Sides
Europeans Take Sides
 In the late summer of 1914, millions of
soldiers marched happily off to battle,
convinced that the war would be short.
A Bloody Stalemate
 German plans for the Western
Front soon began unraveling.
 As the German right flank
drove deeper, it separated from
the rest of the invading force.
 Recognizing their vulnerability,
the Germans pulled up twentyfive miles short of Paris.
 Now, it was France’s chance to
attack.
 What followed was the Battle
of the Marne where the
German advance was stopped.
A Bloody Stalemate
 As a result of the Battle of Marne,
Germany’s lightning-quick strike instead
turned into a long and bloody stalemate
along the battlefields of France.
 The deadlocked region in northern France
became known as the Western Front.
 A quick victory in the west no longer
seemed possible for Germany.
 They were going to have to fight a long
war on two fronts.
War in the Trenches
 When the German
advance was stopped, two
lines of deep trenches
zigzagged from the
English Channel to
Switzerland.
 Trenches were ratinfested, muddy, and
filled with shell craters
and barbed-wire.
 Armies traded huge losses
for pitifully small land
gains.
War in the Trenches
 The space between the
opposing trenches won
the grim name of, “no
man’s land.”
 When officers ordered an
attack, the men went
“over the top” of their
trenches.
 They were usually met
with murderous rounds of
machine gun fire.
 Artillery fire and poison
gas brought death right
into the trenches.
New Weapons of War
 Machine Guns
 Firepower increased
from several rounds
per minute to 600
rounds per minute.
 Because the gun could
wipe out waves of
attackers and make it
difficult for forces to
advance, it helped
create a stalemate.
New Weapons of War
 Tanks
 First developed by the
British were used to
clear a path through
barbed wire for the
infantry.
 The first tanks were
slow and clumsy. The
tank’s top speed was 4
mph.
New Weapons of War
 Poison Gas
 Introduced by the
Germans, the
greenish-yellow fog
of chlorine blinded
and caused death by
choking.
 Soldiers wore gas
masks to protect
themselves.
New Weapons of War
 Airplanes
 Originally, planes
were used for taking
photographs of enemy
lines.
 Soon, both sides used
them to drop bombs.
 Guns soon were
attached to the planes,
and pilots fought each
other in the air.
New Weapons of War
 Submarines
 German submarines,
known as U-boats,
eventually waged
unrestricted warfare
on Allied ships.
 The U-boat’s primary
weapon was the
torpedo, a selfpropelled underwater
missile.
New Weapons of War
 New tools of war had not delivered the fastmoving war many had expected.
 All this new technology did was kill huge
numbers of people more effectively.
 In February 1916, the Germans launched a
massive attack against the French near Verdun.
Each side lost more than 300,000 men.
 In July of 1916, the British army attached the
Germans in Verdun. On the first day more than
20,000 British soldiers were killed.
 By the time the battle ended, each side had
suffered over half a million casualties.
The Eastern Front
 Even as the war on the
Western Front claimed
thousands of lives, both
sides were sending
millions more men to
fight on the Eastern Front,
along the German and
Russian border.
 Without modern
technology, the Russian
army was barely able to
hang on.
The Eastern Front
 By 1916, Russia’s war
effort was near collapse.
 They had yet to become
industrialized, so they
were continually short on
food, guns, ammunition,
clothes, boots, and
blankets.
 The Russian army did
have one asset – its
numbers. Throughout the
war, Russia suffered
enormous battlefield
losses.
III. War Affects the
World
The World at
War
 By early 1915, it was apparent to all the warring
nations that swift victory had eluded them.
 As war on both European fronts promised to be a
grim, drawn-out affair, all the Great Powers
looked for new allies to tip the balance.
 They also sought new war fronts on which to
achieve victory.
The World at War
The U. S. Role
 At first, the U.S. was
neutral, selling goods to
both the Allies and the
Central Powers.
 Then, on May 7, 1915,
the British liner,
Lusitania is sunk by a
German U-boat, killing
1,198 people, including
128 Americans.
The U. S. Role
 By 1917, failed crops and a British
naval blockade, caused severe
food shortages in Germany
 They were desperate to strike
back.
 The Germans announced that their
submarines would sink without
warning any ship in the waters
around Britain, a policy called
unrestricted submarine warfare.
 Ignoring warnings by U.S.
President Woodrow Wilson,
German U-boats sank three
American ships.
The U. S. Role
 In February 1917, a German
telegram, known as the
Zimmerman note, was
intercepted which suggested
an alliance between Germany
and Mexico.
 It said if war with the U.S.
broke out, Germany would
support Mexico in recovering
its “lost territory in Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona.”
 On April 2, 1917 President
Woodrow Wilson asked
Congress to declare war.
The U. S. Role
 Only about 200,000
men were in service at
that time.
 American officers had
little combat experience.
 Almost all of the army’s
weapons were outdated.
 The Selective Service
Act passed in May 1917
drafted 3 million men
chosen by lottery.
War Affects the Home Front
 World War I soon became a total war, the
countries devoted all their resources to the
war effort.
 In Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia,
and France, the entire force of government
was dedicated to winning the conflict.
War Affects the Home Front
 In each country, the
wartime government
took control of the
economy.
 Governments told
factories what to
produce and how
much.
 Nearly every ablebodied civilian was put
to work.
War Affects the Home Front
 So many goods were
in short-supply that
governments turned to
rationing.
 Rationing is a system
where people can only
buy small amounts of
goods, such as butter
and shoes.
War Affects the Home Front
 Governments also
censored news about
the war.
 Many leaders feared
that honest reporting
of the war would turn
people against it.
 Governments also
used propaganda – one
sided information
designed to persuade
support for the war.
The War’s Impact on Women
 Thousands of women
replaced men in
factories, offices, and
shops.
 Women built tanks and
munitions, plowed fields,
paved streets, and ran
hospitals.
 Although most women
left the work force when
the war ended, they
changed many people’s
views of what women
were capable of doing.
IV. A Flawed Peace
The War Ends
 Although there were no
Allied forces on
German soil or no
decisive battle that had
been fought, the
German war machine
and economy were too
exhausted to continue.
 So on Nov. 11, 1918,
the two sides signed an
armistice, an agreement
to stop fighting.
The War Ends
The Treaty of Versailles
 On January 18,
1919, a conference
to establish the
terms of peace
began at the Palace
of Versailles,
outside Paris.
 Delegates from 32
countries attended
the talks.
The Treaty of Versailles
 U.S. Pres. Wilson
presented a plan for
peace known as the
Fourteen Points.
 The plan called for
liberty and selfdetermination for all.
 The Allies rejected his
plan.
The Treaty of Versailles
 Britain and France
were more
concerned with
national security.
 They wanted to strip
Germany of its warmaking power.
 They also wanted
Germany to pay for
the suffering the war
had caused.
The Treaty of Versailles
 The Treaty of
Versailles, signed on
June 28, 1919, called
for the following:
 A League of Nations
whose goal would be
to keep peace among
nations.
The Treaty of Versailles
 The establishment of
new nations
including
Czechoslovakia,
Poland, and
Yugoslavia.
 New territories for
Britain and France
in the Middle East.
The Treaty of Versailles
 Limited Germany’s
military and forced
them to pay reparations
in the amount of $33
billion.
 Forced Germany to
acknowledge that it
alone was responsible
for the war.
Results of the Treaty of Versailles
 In the end, the Treaty of
Versailles did little to
build a lasting peace.
 The U.S., considered
after the war to be the
dominant nation in the
world, rejected the
treaty.
 Sowed seeds that led to
the 2nd World War.
Results of the Treaty of Versailles
 The treaty humiliated
Germany.
 Other nations were no less
responsible for the start of
the war.
 A severe economic
depression made it
impossible for Germany to
pay the reparations.
 The German mark became
practically worthless.
Results of the Treaty of Versailles
 Russia felt ignored.
 They fought with the
allies for three years
and suffered higher
casualties than any
other nation.
 The new government,
the U.S.S.R. became
determined to regain
the territory it lost.
The Legacy
 Both sides paid a tremendous price in terms of
human life.
 8.5 million dead
 21 million wounded
 An entire generation of Europeans were wiped out
became known as the Lost Generation.
 In addition, over $300 billion dollars were spent
fighting the war, a staggering amount for that
time.
 The Great War shook European society to its
foundations