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World War I
Short version
Causes
 Militarism (Wilson): military,
reporting directly to a king, not to
elected civilian governments,
controlled Germany, Austria,
Russia and Turkey with goal of
military power and glory
regardless of the people
 Arms Race: Germany, under
Kaiser Wilhelm II, tried to
challenged British naval power,
producing bigger and more
powerful battleships; new
technology produced more lethal
artillery and individual weapons,
all giving developed nations
confidence in their own military
power.
Further Causes
 Nationalism: waves of nationalism, especially in
Austria and the Ottoman Empire (Serbs, Slavs,
Germans) wanting independent nations of their
own + national pride wouldn’t let nations back
down if they were insulted by another nation.
 Economic Imperialism (Marxist): great powers
empires competing for economic control would
result, inevitably, in world conflict (Hobson):
American variation: arms producers and dealers
pushed the war to make greater profits.
Argument vs this last: arms manufacturers had
no more influence on government decisions than
all the other industries that might be hurt by the
war
Above all, false confidence:
 Germans: their two wars happened so fast, (7
weeks) they felt invincible. They welcomed
frischer und frohlicher Krieg (“fresh and joyous
war”), an adventure for their “iron youth,”
unbeatable.
 French and British: war was a romantic escapade,
Mortal Combat, not grim reality: they would
defeat Germany before Christmas. The French
even had their own plan, Plan #XVII, a lightning
offensive designed to regain the provinces of
Alsace Lorraine, lost to Germany in 1870.
"Some damn foolish thing in the Balkans,"
2. Who said it? How was it prophetic?
3. What happened as the spark for war?
Dominoes: interlocking alliances
 Franz Josef of Austria is persuaded to declare war on
Bosnia to retaliate for the assassination of the
Archduke.
 Russia, with a contracted alliance, must rush to
Bosnia’s defense.
 Germany promises a “blank check” to help Austria,
knowing this action threatens to cause war with
Russia, but gambling that France and Britain will not
support their ally.
 Russia is allied by treaty with France and England,
so when Russia goes to war, France and England
must go, too. Germany’s invasion of Belgium, the
neutrality of which is guaranteed by Britain, impels
the British into the war.
More nations join the fray…
 Everyone wants a piece of the Ottoman Empire.
Besides, Turkey had signed a secret treaty with
Germany: she joined the Central Powers
 Italy had been allied to Germany and Austria
since the 1880’s, but had signed a secret treaty
with France and wanted parts of southern Austria.
Though Germany and Austria wanted Italy to
come into the war with them, Italy argued that
their treaties with those countries were defensive,
and Austria had attacked Bosnia first. Italy
joined the Triple Entente later.
 Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and attacked
Serbia from the south.
1. Name the alliances that provided the
setup for war
Later the war becomes a struggle
between autocracy and democracy
 At first, Triple Alliance included Russia, an
autocracy of autocracies.
 Russia was defeated; the Revolution
replaced the autocratic czar (temporarily)
with limited representative government;
when Lenin took over, Russia withdrew from
war = only democratic powers remained
 US now could safely make a case to its
people to join the war to “make the world
safe for democracy.”
German Plan: “Schlieffen Plan”
Whoops! Why the plan didn’t work:
 Russians got ready for war much more quickly
than Germany anticipate;
 Belgians put up much more resistance than
planned: bog down the German invasion
 British also prepared much more quickly than
anticipated; transported troops, etc to support
French against German forces
 German invasion forces are bogged down, forced
to fight much more fiercely
Armament and the War:
determining the kind of fighting
5,000 cubic feet Nurse Balloons; hangar, Okla. City
German
weather
balloons
leaving
hangar
Anthony Fokker
testing the
synchronization
mechanism of a
machine gun
mounted on a
German plane
The biplane
replaced the
balloon for
observing enemy
positions in the
trench warfare of
World War I. By
the end of the
war, the
Germans were acquiring 4,000 photos a day as part
of the planning for their last great offensive of 1918,
and the US Army made over one million prints in the
last four months of the war..
SPAD XIII
SE5
Handley-Page Bomber
This is the official
German photograph of
the Baron Manfred von
Richtofen, the Red
Baron. Von Richtofen,
Germany's highest ace,
with 80 kills, was
himself shot down and
died on April 21, 1918.
He was shot down by a
Sopwith Camel flown
by Captain A. Roy
Brown, a 24 year old
Canadian aviator. An
Australian infantry unit
also claimed they had
shot Richtofen down.
London air raid damage
Big Bertha, Howitzer L/14, manufactured by
Krupp, the German industrial power, had a range
of 122 km. It bombarded Paris for 20 months
during 1917.
Effects of French shellfire on German positions
Machine Gun, Cal. .30, M1917/M1917A1 (1917). The
M1917 water-cooled .30 cal. machine gun was
developed by John Browning. The M1971A1 was the
Army's standard until mid-1950s. The M1917 watercooled machine gun saw service with the last U.S.
troops to enter France near the end of World War I. It
was tripod mounted, but was also used as an aircraft
gun. The M1917 had a rate of fire of 450 spm.
Although commercial pistols
were purchased and issued to
General Officers, some standard
Army issue pistols were
specially modified for use by
General Officers
Pistol, Semi-automatic.45 Cal.,
M1911
Pistol, .45 Cal., Revolver, M1917
(1917). During World War I, due to a
shortage of M1911 pistols, the Army
procured Colt New Service and Smith
& Wesson hand ejector cal. .45 sixround double-action revolvers. These
pistols were standard issue until
World War II, when they were only
issued to Military Police and security
personnel.
M1918A2 (1940) was fully-automatic, but selective at
either Slow (300-450 spm) or Fast (500-650 spm) rates
of fire. The M1918A2 was originally issued with a spike
based removable stock rest which fitted in a hole in
the buttstock.
Photo of the British Mark I Tank in 1916
Photo of the British Mark I Tank in 1916
"Tanks in Action" - Edward Handley-Read
Trench Warfare
"Humanity StretcherBearer
Post, 9th
Field
Ambulance"
- Gilbert
Rogers
(Official
War Artist)
After two years of war, the battle lines of the Western
front (noted in yellow) had barely changed from the first
days of stalemate. This was modern warfare. The Eastern
front was a different story, where battles more resembled
fluid engagements of the 19th century.
Fanciful German depiction of First Ypres
The First Chemical Warfare: Gas
 Germans used first, then Allies used it
 Many different kinds of chemicals,
especially:
– Chlorine—acidic gas attacks the lungs
– Phosgene—attacks ALL mucus/moist areas
– Mustard gas—attacks skin, doesn’t need to be
breathed in
Aerial View—gas attack
German gas attack on
Allied trenches
Aftermath: gas
attacks
Stalemate
 After the First Battle of the Marne, both Entente and German forces
began a series of outflanking maneuvers to try to force the other to retreat,
in the “race to the sea.”
– Britain and France found themselves facing entrenched German positions
from Lorraine to Belgium's coast.
– Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended
occupied territories, so German trenches were much better
– In April 1915, the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time, opening a
four mile wide hole in the Allied lines closed by Canadian soldiers at both the
2nd Battle of Ypres (the first time a colonial force drove back a European
power), and 3rd Ypres (where over 5000 Canadian soldiers were gassed to
death), earning German respect.
 Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next four years,
though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, and the
Entente's failure at the Somme, in the summer of 1916, brought the
exhausted French army to the brink of collapse.
– Futile attempts at frontal assaults, at terrible cost to the French infantry, led to
mutinies
– News of the Russian Revolution gave hope to socialists among the troops.
Red flags were hoisted and the Internationale was sung on several occasions.
At the height of the mutiny, 30,000 to 40,000 French soldiers participated.
Who was to blame? The Generals?
 Willingness to keep on fighting, accepting enormous
casualties, though success became less and less likely
– Haig (Allies) couldn’t allow idea of failure; had to justify earlier
casualties, money on munitions
– Somme and passchendaele fought for months after clear attacks
not progressing’
– Example: Somme (Oct/Nov 1916) Quagmire, but attacks
continue, degrading morale for 3 months after subordinates said
hopeless
 Persistently unachievable, over optimistic objectives
– Every attack would be the one that would win, vs experience
– Haig insisted German morale and manpower at edge of collapse
– Oct 1916 convinced one more hammer blow would crush
Germans
– Intelligence just told them what they wanted to hear
– Example: Passchendaele: plan to reach channel ports and
Uboats there; first day advanced only 6,000 yards (3 3/5 miles)
didn’t listen to those who wanted more limited goals
However: New Kind of War
 No experience because of new weapons
 Transportation and communications advances
favored the defender
 Disadvantages for attackers
 Generals hampered by interfering politicians
 Throughout 1915-17, the British Empire and France
suffered many more casualties than Germany, but both
sides lost millions of soldiers to injury and disease.
 Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on
the Western Front at any one time. 1,000 battalions, in
sectors from the North Sea to the Orne River, rotated,
fighting for a month, then withdrawing, replaced by
another unit, unless fighting in a battle
 The front contained over 6,000 miles of trenches.
Russia leaves the War:
Consequences
 Russian plan: to attack both Austrian front and Prussian
front at the same time
– Some success on Austrian front
– Beaten badly by better equipped and trained Prussian armies
– Defeats led to discontent at home that helped push the revolution
 Lenin and the Bolsheviks succeeded in taking advantage
of weakness and confusion of the Russian revolution to
seize power in St Petersburg
 In December 1917, Lenin signed an Armistice with the
Central Powers, ending Russian participation with the
Allies and giving up ¼ of Russia’s territory to Germany
– The withdrawal of Russia freed up German troops from the
eastern front for use in the west.
– Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their
territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic.
The Lusitania
 Germany declared unrestricted sub
warfare against allied shipping,
especially British
 America was shipping war material
and food to Europe and making
TONS of money.
Despite German warnings, the Lusitania, a passenger
liner, sailed from New York toward London in 1915.
Off the coast of Ireland, a German sub spotted the liner,
then fired a torpedo.
The initial explosion set off a violent second blast. The
ship sank in 18 minutes. 1,195 of the 1,959 on board,
including 123 Americans, died.
Outrage was great on both sides of the Atlantic (riots in
England)
America enters the war
 German miscalculation overcame US “isolationist” public opinion:
– Immediately after the Lusitania sank, Germany promised to restrict their
sub warfare, but then early in 1917, Germany resumed its policy of
unrestricted sub warfare, reminding all of their hostility over Lusitania
– The Zimmerman Telegram was intercepted about the same time. The
telegram encouraged the Mexican government to declare war against the
US if the US came into the war against Germany: then after the war,
Germany would make sure Mexico recovered all territories surrendered
to the US during the 19th Century.
 After further U-boat attacks on American merchant ships, Wilson had
Congress declare war on Germany in April, 1917.
 Germany thought it had time before large numbers of American
troops would arrive in Europe, and that the U-boats would prevent
their arrival.
– BUT the United States had full military-related production, aiding the
Entente for quite some time, and had loaned the Allied powers money
– The Germans decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, despite
the threat of U.S. intervention, gambling that they would win the war
before America could make an impact on the battlefield.
 American contribution to the war was important,
particularly increasing US infantry in Europe.
Significant numbers of American troops only arrived
in Europe in the summer of 1918.
 The US Navy immediately started escorting European
convoys in the Atlantic. Several regiments of marines
were also dispatched to France.
– However, the United States not able to contribute manpower
to the Western and Italian front until later in the wars.
 The British and French wanted the United States to
send its infantry to reinforce their troops already on
the battlelines; the Americans were short of artillery,
etc. General Pershing resisted breaking up American
units and using them as reinforcements for British
Empire and French units. Pershing ordered the use of
frontal assaults, and the AEF suffered a very high rate
of casualties..
Over four months in 1918 the German army launched five
major assaults at different parts of the allied line. The
Allies called up American troops to assist British and
French in the area just south of Belgium’s border on the
way to Paris.
Germans, knowing where untested American troops were
placed, attacked there with ferocity, expecting easy victory.
"The Menin Road" - Ian Strang, 1918
Destruction of US
89th Division
ammunition dump at
Lucey
Valenciennes
burning after
German
evacuation
"Ypres, Christmas 1917" - Gilbert Holliday
Peronne during the Battle of the Somme
1916 - Robert Carlson
"Facts are mere accessories to the truth,
and we do not invite to our hearth the
guest who can only remind us that on
such a day we suffered calamity. Still less
welcome is he who would make a Roman
holiday of our misfortunes. Exaggeration
of what was monstrous is quickly
recognised as a sign of egotism, and that
contrarious symptom of the same disease
which pretends that what is accepted as
monstrous was really little more than
normal is equally unwelcome."
Max Plowman from Subaltern on the
Somme