Download World War I- The Great War

World War I- The Great War
“The lamps are going out all over
Europe. We shall not see them lit in
our lifetime.”
Reasons for World War I
• Nationalism
• Imperialism
• Militarism
• Entangling Alliances
• Assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Nationalism
1
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.
Pan-Slavism: The Balkans, 1914
The
“Powder Keg”
of Europe
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.
1
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
1
Assassination in Sarajevo
2
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.
1914
• June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
heir to the throne of the AustroHungarian Empire, is assassinated in
Sarajevo
• July 28 Austria-Hungary declares war on
Russia
• August 1 Germany declares war on Russia
• August 3 Germany declares war on France
• August 4 Great Britain declares war on
Germany
2
The Historians’ View
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
The Schlieffen Plan
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.
Mobilization
 Home by Christmas!
 No major war
in 50 years!
 Nationalism!
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go;
It's a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square,
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there!
German Atrocities in Belgium
A world at war
1914
• August 4 Germany
invades neutral
Belgium
• August 26-30
German army
achieves its greatest
victory Eastern front
at the Battle of
Tannenberg
• September 5-10 First
Battle of the Marne
halts German
invasion in France
• September 15 First
trenches
The Western Front
3
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
STALEMATE
• Allies halt Central Powers;
both sides dig in
• No flanks for either side
to attack
• Barbed wire entanglements
up to 150’ deep
• Neither side gains more
than 10 miles in over 2
years
• Mass is supreme principle
• Massed assaults
• Massed fires
Trench life-
Another diagram of a trench
Trench diagram
No man’s land
Looking out before going “over the top”
Submarines
• New aspect of “Total
War”
• Targeting “neutral
merchant” ships
• Germans announce
submarine blockade
• Part physical, part
psychological weapon
• Draws Allied
resources away from
offensive operations
• Civilian control of
production
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
• Convoy System: defeats submarine warfare
• Using warships to protect groups of merchant ships
Aviation
•
Used initially for
reconnaissance/spotting
• Wireless communication
critical development in
spotting
•
Arial combat originally a
counter-reconnaissance
function
•
Troops on the ground don’t
like the planes overhead….
•
By the end of the war,
planes were being used to
drop bombs on railways,
intersections, factories,
etc…
“Red Baron”
Looking for the “Red Baron”
“Jenny” JN-4
Jaeger
Verdun – February, 1916
e German offensive.
e Each side had 500,000 casualties.
The Somme – July, 1916
e 60,000 British soldiers killed in one day.
e Over 1,000,000 killed in 5 months.
Women
and the
War
Effort
Financing the War
For Recruitment
Munitions Workers
French Women Factory
Workers
German Women Factory Workers
Working in the Fields
A Woman Ambulance Driver
Red Cross Nurses
Women in the Army Auxiliary
Russian Women Soldiers
Spies
“Mata Hari”
Real Name:
Margareetha
Geertruide
Zelle
German Spy!
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
Collapsing Morale
4
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!
4
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"
Campaign to Victory
4
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
4
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
5
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
1918 Flu Pandemic:
Depletes All Armies
50,000,000 –
100,000,000 died
Turkish Genocide Against Armenians
A Portent of Future Horrors to Come!
Turkish Genocide Against Armenians
Districts & Vilayets of Western
Armenia in Turkey
1914
1922
Erzerum
215,000
1,500
Van
197,000
500
Kharbert
204,000
35,000
Diarbekir
124,000
3,000
Bitlis
220,000
56,000
Sivas
225,000
16,800
Western Anatolia
371,800
27,000
Cilicia and Northern Syria
309,000
70,000
European Turkey
194,000
163,000
73,390
15,000
2,133,190
387,800
Other Armenian-populated Sites
in Turkey
Trapizond District
Total
5
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
5
The Treaty:
•
•
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
5
1914
Europe in 1914 and 1920
5
1920