Download World War I- The Great War

World War I- The Great War
Reasons for World War I
• Nationalism
• Imperialism
• Militarism
• Entangling Alliances
• Assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand
Nationalism
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Aggressive nationalism was one
leading cause of international
tensions.
•Nationalist feelings were
strong in both Germany and
France.
•In Eastern Europe, Pan-Slavism
held that all Slavic peoples
shared a common nationality.
Russia felt that it had a duty to
lead and defend all Slavs.
•Each group obsessed with
having independent countries.
Imperialism
Imperial rivalries divided European nations.
• New countries, like Germany/Italy need empires to gain resources
• England/France held vast colonies in North America, Africa, Asia,
Australia
• Germany/Italy had missed Age of Exploration
• Russia still carried medieval hope of expanding to Constantinople
• In 1906 and again in 1911, competition for colonies brought
France and Germany to the brink of war.
Militarism
The 1800s saw a rise in militarism, the
glorification of the military.
• The great powers expanded their armies
and navies, creating an arms race that
further increased suspicions and made
war more likely.
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Standing Armies in Europe, 1914
Entangling Alliances
• The development of Italy and Germany
required a new system of alliances to
keep a balance of power in Europe
• Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy
• Austria-Hungary and Germany will be known
as the Central Powers
• Triple Entente: France, Russia, Great Britain
• Later known as the Allies
Causes 1and Effects of European Alliances
Distrust led the great powers to
sign treaties pledging to defend
one another.
These alliances were intended to
create powerful combinations that
no one would dare attack.
The growth of rival alliance systems
increased international tensions.
European Alliances, 1914
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Assassination in Sarajevo
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In 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary
announced he would visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia.
•At the time, Bosnia was under the rule of AustriaHungary. But it was also the home of many Serbs and
other Slavs.
News of the royal visit angered many Serbian nationalists.
• They viewed Austrians as foreign oppressors.
Members of a Serbian terrorist group assassinated the
Archduke and his wife.
The Assassin and Assassination
Who’s to blame?
Germany
Felt it must stand behind
Austria-Hungary as its ally
Austria-Hungary
Blamed Serbia for terrorism
Wanted to crush
Serbian
nationalism
Russia
Supported Slavic people
Feared AustriaHungary wanted
to rule all Slavs
France
Backed Russia
Felt it might
someday need
Russian support
against Germany
Britain
Felt duty to protect Belgium
Feared power of
Germany across
the English
channel.
The Historians’ View
2
How could an assassination lead to all-out war in just
a few weeks?
Today, most historians agree that all parties must
share blame.
• Each of the great powers believed that its cause
was just.
• Once the machinery of war was set in motion, it
seemed impossible to stop.
• Although leaders made the decisions, most
people on both sides were equally committed to
military action.
The Schlieffen Plan
• Schlieffen Plan: German plan of Alfred von
Schlieffen to avoid two front war
• Main idea-Russia would mobilize more slowly
than France
• 7/8's of the German army would
invade Belgium to avoid French frontier
defenses and crush France in 6 weeks
• Then the German army could use the Railroad
to move to the Eastern Front just as slow
Russians began moving
A world at war
Failure of the Plan
• Germany asked Belgium’s permission to use
their country to invade France.
• Belgium refuses
• Germany invades anyway.
• Britain declares war on Germany for violating
Belgium’s neutrality.
• Major failure of the plan:
• British involvement
• Belgium resistance stronger than thought
• Ties Germans up for a month
• Russian mobilization is faster
• France uses the railroad to move troops around.
The Western Front
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German forces swept through Belgium toward Paris.
Russia mobilized more quickly than expected.
Germany shifted some troops to the east to confront Russia, weakening
German forces in the west.
British and French troops defeat Germany in the Battle of the Marne.
The battle of the Marne pushed back the German offensive and
destroyed Germany’s hopes for a quick victory on the Western Front.
The result was a long, deadly stalemate, a deadlock in which neither
side is able to defeat the other. Battle lines in France remained almost
unchanged for four years.
Trench warfare
•Trench Warfare: trench
systems stretching 500
miles across France from
Belgian coast to
Switzerland
•Causes war to stalemate
as each side takes turns
bombarding and then
charging across “no man's
land” (area between enemy
trenches) in futile attacks
against trenches and
machine guns
Trench life-the smelly truth
Trench diagram
No man’s land
Looking out before going “over the top”
Rats, Rot, lice and dysentery-ooh the smell!
• Common things in a trench
• Rats
• Black and brown-sometimes got to cat size
• Spread disease and contaminated food
• Trench rot
• Constant damp inside the trenches could cause feet to rot
and later be amputated
Other problems
•Lice infestation was
common
•Caused itching and
misery and a lot of shaved
heads
•Food
•Beef, bread, and biscuits
•When flour was short
sometimes made bread out
of turnips
Lice poem
• I killed them, but they would not die.
Yea! all the day and all the night
For them I could not rest or sleep,
Nor guard from them nor hide in
flight.
• Then in my agony I turned
And made my hands red in their gore.
In vain - for faster than I slew
They rose more cruel than before.
• I killed and killed with slaughter mad;
I killed till all my strength was gone.
And still they rose to torture me,
For Devils only die in fun.
• I used to think the Devil hid
In women’s smiles and wine’s
carouse. I called him Satan,
Beelzebub. But now I call him, dirty
louse.
Europe at War, 1914–1918
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New weapons and technology
Invention
Description
Use in World War I
Automatic
machine gun
Mounted gun that fires a
rapid, continuous stream
of bullets
Made it possible for a few
gunners to mow down
waves of soldiers
Tank
Armored vehicle that
travels on a track and can
cross many kinds of land
Protected advancing
troops as they broke
through enemy defenses.
Early tanks are slow,
clumsy, and break
Submarine
Underwater ship that can Used by Germany to
launch torpedoes, or
destroy Allied ships.
guided underwater bombs Helped bring U.S. into war
Airplane
One or two seated
propeller plane equipped
with machine gun or
bombs
At first, used mainly for
observation. Later, flying
aces engage in “dog
fights”
Poison gas; gas
mask
Gases that cause choking,
blinding, or severe skin
blisters; gas masks can
protect soldiers from
poison gas.
Thrown into enemy
trenches, killing or
disabling troops. Gas
masks make poison gas
less important.
Notable Battles
•1st Battle of the Marne: French
General Joffre “miraculously”
shifts enough troops to stop
German advance and save Paris
*500,000 casualties
•No more quick victory for
Germans
•Battle of the Somme: British
attack and force Germans to
withdraw and dig defensive
trenches to keep from being
pushed out of France *600,000
casualties
• Battle of Verdun: Germans
attempt to advance, but GB/FR
use trenches to stop, the battle
lasts for months of trench
warfare causing 700,000
casualties
Naval battles
•The Naval War
•Battle of Jutland: Germany fails to
break through English naval blockade
• Submarine War: Germany forced to
use “unrestricted submarine warfare” to
stop US supplies from reaching England,
but offends US
•U-Boat=German Submarine
•Convoy System: defeats submarine
warfare
•Using warships to protect groups of
merchant ships
The Eastern Front
• Battle of Tannenburg: Russian army splits and is defeated by the
Germans
• Russian Revolution: Russian war failures, casualties and starvation
cause mass chaos and revolts against Czar Nicholas's government
• March Revolution: Alexander Kerensky overthrows Czar Nicholas
but plans on continuing WWI to not let down the Allies
• November Revolution: Vladimir Lenin gains support by promising
to withdraw Russia from WWI, begins civil war with Kerensky
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Lenin signs a separate treaty with
Germany
• Russia loses large amounts of land
• Creates Western distrust of USSR
• Allies invade Russia to save war supplies and stop communism
• Russia gets out of the war in 1918 because of the
Revolution
Collapsing Morale
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By 1917, the morale of both troops and civilians had plunged.
• As morale collapsed, troops mutinied or
deserted.
• Long casualty lists, food shortages, the total
destruction of property and life, and the
failure of generals to win promised victories
led to calls for peace.
• In Russia, soldiers left the front to join in a
full-scale revolution back home.
• The United States provides the needed relief!
The Yanks are coming!
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Why Did the United States Enter the War?
• German submarines were attacking merchant and passenger ships
carrying American citizens.
• In May 1915, a German submarine torpedoed the British liner Lusitania, killing
1,200 passengers, including 120 Americans.
• Telegram sent by German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann.
• In exchange for Mexican support, Germany offered to help Mexico reconquer New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona.
• Propaganda: France and Great Britain twisted the war into a fight
against democratic powers versus evil absolute monarchies
• Economic Interest: US banks and business loaned $1.5 Billion to
GB and FR.
•
President Woodrow Wilson convinced Congress to declare war in
April 1917 to keep the world "safe for democracy"
“Over There”
Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Take it on the run,
On the run, on the run.
Hear them calling, you and me,
Every son of liberty.
Hurry right away,
No delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad
To have had such a lad.
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line.
(chorus sung twice)
Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Johnnie show the Hun
Who's a son of a gun.
Hoist the flag and let her fly,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
Pack your little kit,
Show your grit, do your bit.
Yankee to the ranks,
From the towns and the tanks.
Make your mother proud of you,
And the old Red, White and Blue.
(chorus sung twice)
Chorus
Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming
Ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r,
Send the word, send the word to beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's over
Over there.
Campaign to Victory
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In 1917, The United States declared war on
Germany.
By 1918, about two million American soldiers had
joined the Allies on the Western Front.
The Germans launched a huge offensive, pushing the
Allies back.
The Allies launched a counteroffensive, driving
German forces back across France and Germany.
Germany sought an armistice, or agreement to
end fighting, with the Allies. On 11 am, November
11, 1918, the war ended.
Wilson’s Fourteen Points
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President Woodrow Wilson issued the
Fourteen Points, a list of his terms for
resolving World War I and future wars. He
called for:
• freedom of the seas
• free trade
• large-scale reductions of arms
• an end to secret treaties
• self-determination, or the right of people to
choose their own form of government, for
Eastern Europe
• the creation of a “general association of
nations” to keep the peace in the future
Casualties of World War I
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Deaths
in Battle
Wounded
in Battle
1,357,800
908,371
1,700,000
462,391
50,585
502,421
4,266,000
2,090,212
4,950,000
953,886
205,690
342,585
1,808,546
922,500
325,000
4,247,143
3,620,000
400,000
Allies
France
British empire
Russia
Italy
United States
Others
Central Powers
Germany
Austria-Hungary
Ottoman empire
The Paris Peace Conference
The delegates to the Paris Peace Conference faced
many difficult issues:
The Big Four: Woodrow Wilson (US), David Lloyed
George (GB), Georges Clemenceau (FR), Vittorio
Orlando (Italy)
•Great Britain and France wanted to punish the
Central Powers
• Creates the Treaty of Versailles
• Creates the weak and ineffectual League of
Nations
• 60 nations join-not the US
The Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles:
•
•
forced Germany to assume full blame for causing the war.
imposed huge reparations upon Germany.
The Treaty aimed at weakening Germany by:
•
limiting the size of the German military, to 100,000 total
•
•
•
•
No tanks, heavy artillery, airplanes, submarines, or draft
returning Alsace and Lorraine to France,
removing hundreds of miles of territory from Germany,
stripping Germany of its overseas colonies.
The treaty also chopped up and created new countries.
The Germans signed the treaty because they had no
choice. But German resentment of the Treaty of
Versailles would poison the international climate for 20
years and lead to an even deadlier world war.
Europe in 1914 and 1920
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1914
Europe in 1914 and 1920
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1920