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10.5 Lecture – Europe in World War I I. The Great War Begins A. In response to Austria’s declaration of war, Russia, Serbia’s ally, began moving their army toward the Russian-Austrian border. 1. To Germany, Russia’s mobilization amounted to a declaration of war. 2. On August 1, the German government declared war on Russia. a. Russia looked to France as an ally. b. Two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declared war on France. c. Great Britain declared war on Germany. 3. Europe was now locked in battle. B. Leaders 1. Allied Powers – Triple Entente a. Great Britain – David Lloyd George b. France – George Clemenceau c. United States – Woodrow Wilson d. Russia – Czar Nicolas I 2. Central Powers – Triple Alliance a. Germany – Wilhelm (William) II b. Austria-Hungary – Francis Joseph C. Throughout Europe, people greeted the outbreak of war with parades and flags, expecting a quick victory. 1. When the war began, very few imagined that their side might not win, and no one foresaw that everyone would loose. D. In Russia the effect of the war was especially devastating, for it destroyed the old society, opened the door to revolution and civil war, and introduced a radial new political system. 1. By clearing away the old, the upheaval of war prepared Russia to industrialize under the leadership of professional revolutionaries. II. Stalemate 1914-1917 A. The war that erupted in 1914 was known as the “Great War” until the 1940s, when a far greater one overshadowed. B. Central Powers 1. Germany and Austria-Hungary a. Location in the heart of Europe b. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would later join the Central Powers in the hopes of regaining lost territories. C. Allied Powers 1. Great Britain, France, and Russia 2. Japan and Italy joined a. Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. b. The Italians joined the other side after accusing their former partners of unjustly starting the war. D. Late summer 1914, millions of soldiers marched happily off to battle, convinced that the war would be short. 1. As the summer of 1914 turned to fall, the war turned into a long and bloody stalemate, or deadlock, along the battlefields of France. a. This deadlock in France became known as the Western Front. 2. Schlieffen Plan a. A battle strategy called for attacking and defeating France in the West and then rushing East to fight Russia. 1. Germany felt they could accomplish this because Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in its railroad system and would take long to supply the front lines. 3. Early September, German forces had swept into France and reached the outskirts of Paris. a. On September 5, the Allies regrouped and attacked the Germans northeast of Paris. b. 1st major clash on the Western Front. c. Battle of the Marne 1. The single most important event of the war. 2. The defeat of the Germans left the Schlieffen Plan in ruins. 4. Russian forces had already invaded Germany. a. Germany was going to have to fight a long war on two fronts. E. Fighting 1. The advantage always went to the fastest moving army led by the boldest general. 2. Believing that a spirited attack would always prevail, French generals hurled their troops, dressed in bright blue-and-red uniforms, against the well-defended German border and suffered a crushing defeat. a. German armies defeated the French and the British. 3. During the next month, both sides spread out until they formed an unbroken line extending over 300 miles from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. F. The Western Front – Trench Warfare 1. Troops prepared their defenses a. Their most potent weapons were machines guns, which provided an almost impenetrable defense against advancing infantry but were useless for the offensive because they were to heavy for one man to carry and took to much time to setup. 2. To escape the deadly streams of bullets, soldiers dug holes in the ground, connected the holes to form shallow trenches, they dug communications trenches to the rear. a. The battlefields were scarred by lines of trenches several feet deep, their tops protracted by sandbags and their floors covered with planks. i) The soldiers spent much of the year soaked and covered in mud. ii) Trenches swarmed with rats, fresh food was nonexistent, sleep was nearly impossible. 3. Military terms – it was a war in which defensive capabilities outperformed offensive ones, so that neither side could achieve significant break thoughts. a. A war of position rather than a war of movement. 4. No Man’s Land a. Four dehumanizing years of living and dying half buried in the earth, wet, cold, frightened, and bombarded by the most barbarically ingenious combinations of metal and chemicals the Western mind could invent. b. What was extraordinary was that the trenches along the entire Western Front were connected, leaving no gaps through which armies could advance. 1. How, then, could either, side ever hope to win? 5. Technology a. New tools of war 1. Machine guns, poison gas, armored tanks, larger artillery – had not delivered the fast moving war they had expected. 2. This new technology only killed large amounts of people more effectively. G. The Battles 1. For four years, generals on each side again and again ordered their troops to attack. a. They knew the causalities would be enormous, but they expected the enemy to run out of young men before their own side did. b. Thousands of young men on one side climbed out of their trenches, raced across the open fields, and were mowed down by enemy machine gun fire. 2. Battle at Verdun, 1916 a. The year 1916 saw the bloodiest and most futile battles of the war. b. The Germans attacked French forts at Verdun. c. The British army tried to relieve the pressure on the French. 1. British forces attacked the Germans Northwest of Verdun, in the valley of the Somme River. 2. On the first day of battle over 20,000 British soldiers were killed. 3. Six months later, Germany has still not taken control. 4. In the end more than ½ million soldiers on each side had died. 3. Battle at Somme, 1916 a. In retaliation, the British attacked the Germans at the Somme River and suffered 420,000 causalities – 60,000 on the first day along – while the Germans lost 450,000 and the French 200,000. b. British introduced new technology, the tank, but failed to be a success during the war. c. Thousands of British fell in a 24-hour period. 1. Described as the blackest day in the history of the British army. 4. It was mass slaughter in a moonscape of mud, steel, and flesh. a. Both sides attacked and defended, but neither side could win, for trenches and machine guns stalemated the armies. b. The Western Front moved no more than a few miles one way or another. 5. Battle of the Sea a. The British cut the German overseas telegraph cables, blockaded the coasts of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and set out to capture or sink all enemy ships still at sea. 1. So successful that Germany had to receive supplies from neutral countries – Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. b. Britain ruled the waves but not the ocean below the surface. 1. In early 1915, in retaliation for the British naval blockade, Germany announced a blockade of Britain by submarines. 2. Submarines could not rescue the passengers of a sinking ship or distinguish between neutral and enemy ships. 3. German submarines attacked every vessel they could. i) One of their victims was the British ocean liner, Lusitania. - The death toll from that attack was 1,198 people, 139 of them Americans. ii) The US protested, Germany ceased its submarine campaign, hoping to keep America neutral. 6. The Battle on the Eastern Front a. This area was a stretch of battlefield along the German and Russian border. 1. Russians and Serbs vs Germans and AustroHungarians. 2. More mobile war than on the Western Front 3. Slaughter and stalemate were common. b. Early fighting 1. Germans crushed the invading Russian army and drove it into full retreat. 2. Russian forces defeated the Austrians and played a tug-of-war fight with them during the war. c. Russia Struggles 1. By 1916, Russia’s war effort was near collapse. 2. Russia had yet to become industrialized. i) The Russian army was continually short of food, guns, ammunition, clothes, boots, and blankets. ii) Allied shipments were limited due to the German submarine blockade. - In the south the Ottomans still controlled the straits leading from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. 3. Russia had only one asset – its numbers i) Had an enormous population. III. The Home Front and the War Economy A. Trench-bound armies demanded even more weapons, ammunition, and food, so civilians had to work harder, eat less, and pay higher taxes. 1. Textiles, coal, meat, fats, and imported products such as tea and sugar were strictly rationed. 2. Governments gradually imposed stringent controls over all aspects of their economies. B. Civilian Life 1. Food rations were allocated according to need, improving nutrition among the poor. 2. Unemployment vanished. a. Thousands of Africans, Indians, and Chinese were recruited for heavy labor in Europe. b. Hired women to fill jobs in steel mills, mines, and ammunitions plants vacated by men off to war. c. Women became streetcar drivers, mail carriers, and police officers. d. Found work in the burgeoning government bureaucracies. e. Many joined auxiliary military services as doctors, nurses, mechanics, and ambulance drivers. 3. Though clearly intended “for the duration only,” these positions gave thousands of women a sense of participation in the war effort and a taste of personal and financial independence. 4. German civilians paid an especially high price for the war, for the British naval blockade severed their overseas trade. 5. After the failure of the potato crop in 1916 came the “turnip winter,” when people had to survive on 1,000 calories per day, half the normal amount that an active adult needed. a. Women, children, and the elderly were especially hard hit. b. Soldiers at the front went hungry and raided enemy lines to scavenge food. C. Affect on Colonies 1. The war also brought hardships to Europe’s African colonies. 2. Many Europeans stationed in Africa joined the war, leaving large areas with little or no European presence. 3. Over a million Africans served in the various armies, and perhaps three times that number were drafted as porters to carry army equipment. 4. Faced with a shortage of young Frenchmen, France drafted Africans into its army, where many fought side by side with Europeans. D. United States 1. Grew rich during the war. 2. For two and a half years the US stayed technically neutral. a. It did not fight but did a roaring business supplying France and Britain. 3. Entered the war in 1917. a. Business engaging in war production made spectacular profits. b. Civilians were exhorted to help the war effort by investing their savings in war bonds and growing food in backyard “victory gardens.” 4. Facing labor shortages, employers hired women and African Americans. a. Employment opportunities created by the war played a major role in the migration of black Americans from the rural south to the cities of the North