Download Chapter 26: World War I Chapter 26: Section 1 The Great War

Chapter 26: World War I
Chapter 26: Section 1 The Great War Begins
There were four main causes to WWI:
1. Militarism: Massive military buildup.
2. Alliances: Countries formed partnerships to protect themselves.
3. Imperialism: Rival empires seek to keep power.
4. Nationalism: Loyalty and devotion to their country or culture.
Great powers were forming alliances, called ententes, to try to keep peace.
Triple Alliance included:
Germany
Austria-Hungary
Italy
The Triple Entente included:
– Russia
– France
– Great Britain
Central Powers
Allies
 Germany
 France
Russia
Britain
Austria
In 1914 European Powers competed to protect their status.
Overseas rivalries divided them, as they fought for new colonies in Africa and elsewhere.
They began to build their armies and navies.
A rise to militarism helped to feed this arms race.
Sensational journalism stirred the public against rival nations
Germans proud of their military and economic power
The French yearned for the return of Alsace and Lorraine
Russia supported a powerful form of nationalism called Pan-Slavism. This led Russia to support
nationalists in Serbia.
Austria- Hungary worried that nationalism might lead to rebellions within its empire.
Ottoman Turkey felt threatened by nearby new nations in the Balkans, such as Serbia and Greece.
Serbia’s dreams of a South Slav state could take land away from both Austria-Hungary and Turkey.
Unrest made the Balkans a “powder keg.”
The event that triggered the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in
Sarajevo, Bosnia.
He was killed by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a terrorist organization known as the Black Hand.
Some Austrian leaders saw this as an opportunity to crush Serbian nationalism.
Austria sent Serbia an ultimatum, which Serbia refused to meet completely.
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28. Russia had promised that they would protect Serbia,
so then Germany declared war on Russia as well as France.
Chapter 26: Section 2 A New Kind of War
Germany had developed a battle plan years earlier called the Schlieffen Plan.
It called for German troops to quickly defeat France in the West and then head East to fight Russia.
The first thing Germany did was to move through Belgium, a neutral country, which led to Great Britain
declaring war on Germany.
Millions of French, British, Russian and German soldiers mobilized for battle.
German forces fought their way towards France, but Belgian resistance foiled Germany’s plans for a
quick victory.
The Battle of the Marne in September 1914, was the beginning of trench warfare.
Both sides dug trenches along the battlefront to protect their armies from enemy fire.
The Germans were on their way to Paris when the Allies pushed them back. The Germans and the Allies
then dug a series of trenches and the battle quickly became a stalemate.
This region became known as the Western Front.
Life in trenches was miserable. Rainstorms produced puddles and thick mud and sanitation was a big
problem.
Technology made World War I different from earlier wars.
 New Technology:
– Tanks
– Airplanes
– Modern Submarines
– Zeppelins
– Machine Guns
Pilots known as “flying aces” confronted each other in the skies, but these “dog fights” had little effect
on ground war.
German submarines, called U-boats, did tremendous damage to Allied shipping.
To defend against them, the Allies organized convoys, or groups of merchant ships protected by
warships.
Dead bodies would often stay there for days and lice and rats were always around.
Sometimes soldiers would go “over the top” and attack the enemy trench. Many soldiers would be cut
down by machine guns.
Poison gas was used for the first time. It could blind, choke, or burn soldiers and even kill them.
Gas masks were developed as a way to combat this. Machine guns came into wide use as well as
artillery and shells.
Tanks and airplanes were used for the first time during WWI. Tanks could cross rough terrain and
offered some protection. Aircraft was used for observation and attack.
Factories started to produce military equipment and civilians conserved food and goods so they could
be used by the military.
Eastern Europe’s battle lines shifted back and forth, sometimes over large areas.
Casualties rose higher than on the Western Front.
Russia was ill-prepared for and suffered a disastrous defeat when pushing into eastern Germany.
In 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary and Germany.
In 1917, the Austrians and Germans launched a major offensive against the Italians.
World War I was a global conflict:
– Japan used war to seize outposts in China and islands in the Pacific.
– Ottoman empire joined the Central Powers.
– Its strategic location enabled it to cut off Allied supply lines to Russia through the
Dardanelles, a vital strait.
Arab nationalists revolted against Ottoman rule. British sent T.E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, to aid
the Arabs.
Chapter 26: Section 3 Winning The War
 World War I= total war
 Participants fueled all resources into the war effort.
 Universal conscriptions or “the draft” requiring all young men to be ready to fight.
 As millions of men left to fight, women took over their jobs, keeping economies running.
 British blockades kept ships from carrying other supplies, such as food, in and out of Germany.
 In retaliation German U-boats torpedoed the British passenger liner Lusitania.
 Governments also censored newspapers and used propaganda to influence people’s opinions.
Women also started to work in factories.
Battle of Verdun (Feb-Dec 1916): Attack by the Germans in an attempt to kill as many French troops as
possible. France would suffer 400,000 casualties. It ended in a stalemate.
Battle of the Somme (July-Nov 1916): British launch attack to push Germans away from Verdun. The
British would lose 60,000 troops the first day. Over a million troops would die in all. The battle also
ended in a stalemate.
 Gallipoli Campaign (April-Dec 1915): The Allies used the Dardanelles to ship supplies to Russia.
The Allies would give up after 200,000 troops had been killed.
 In late 1914, Russia launched an attack on Turkey where ethnic Armenians lived.
 Ottoman leaders claimed the Armenians were helping the Russians so they ordered the
removal of Armenians.
600,000 Armenians would die and the Ottoman Empire would be accused of genocide.
As time passed, war fatigue set in.
Long causality lists
Food shortages
Failure to win led to peace calls.
Morale plunged
Russia’s incompetent generals and corruption led to Revolution.
Until 1917, the United States had been neutral, but that year it declared war on Germany.
Germany’s unrestricted U-boat warfare.
Americans had cultural ties with Allies.
2 million joined Allies on the Western Front.
 In February 1917, the Zimmermann Note was discovered. This proposed that Mexico attack the
United States with German support. By April 1917, the U.S. entered the war on the Allied side.
 March 1918, Allies drove back the Germans.
 In September, German generals told the Kaiser that the war could not won.
 Kaiser stepped down and new German government sought an armistice.
Chapter 26: Section 4 Making of Peace
 The human, material, and political costs of World War I were staggering.
 Huge loss of life was even made worsened by the 1918 pandemic of influenza.
 From France to Russia…
 Homes , farms, factories, and roads had been bombed to rubble.
 Allies blamed the war on their defeated foes.
 Allies wanted war reparations.
 Governments had collapsed in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman
empire.
 Allies met at the Paris Peace Conference to discuss the fate of Europe.
 Central Powers and Russia were not included in the talks.
(Why is Russia left out?)
 Different agendas creates problems:
– Britain focused on rebuilding Britain.
– The French wanted to punish Germany severely.
– American President Wilson wanted to create an international League of Nations.
 Woodrow Wilson had come up with his own plan for peace called the Fourteen Points.
It called for freedom of the seas and for the right of all people to choose their own government.
 Woodrow Wilson had come up with his own plan for peace called the Fourteen Points.
 It called for freedom of the seas and for the right of all people to choose their own government.
 It also called for a League of Nations, a place where all countries could meet to discuss their
differences.
 In June of 1919, the Allies ordered representatives of the new German Republic to sign the
Treaty of Versailles.
 Germany had to accept full blame of war.
 Germany had to pay huge reparations in a very bad German economy.
 Limited the size of Germany’s military.
 Nearly 9 million soldiers were killed in battle. 13 million civilians died and over 20 million were
wounded.
 The war cost about $332 billion
 50 million more people would die in the Spring of 1918 because of a world wide influenza
outbreak.
Chapter 26: Section 5 Revolution in Russia
 The Bolsheviks were led by Vladimir Lenin and wanted to make Russia a socialist country.
 Economic conditions started to worsen in Russia and many people wanted Russia to leave WWI
by 1917.
 On March 8, 1917, Russian citizens took to the streets to protest a lack of food and fuel.
 Police would not follow orders to shoot the protesters.
 Czar Nicholas II ordered the Russian Duma to disband, which they didn’t. By March 15, Nicholas
realized that he no longer had power over the Russian people and he was forced to step down.
A provisional government would be put in place.
 In November 1917, Bolshevik factory workers attacked the government, which caused it to
collapse.
 The Bolshevik’s controlled Russia and their leader was Vladimir Lenin.
 He would establish a Communist government. They would give land to Russian peasants.
 Russia then signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ending their involvement in WWI. This upset
some people because the Russians lost land.
 Two armies fought for control: White Army and Red Army.
 The Bolsheviks would win in late 1920.