Causes
N
I
M
Sa
Nationalism
Imperialism
Militarism
Strategic Alliances
Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand
 Tendency
for countries such as the great
powers to act in their own national interestswhen these interests went against those of
another country, warfare could easily result

Alsace-Lorraine dispute
 The
longing of an ethnic minority for
independence
 Competition
for colonies in Africa, Asia, and
the Pacific led to frequent disputes between
the Great Powers in the 1895-1914 period
 The
great powers of Europe- Austria,
Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain,
and Russia all spent large sums of money in
preparation of war
 Made war all that much more likely!
 Complicated
system of alliances between the
great powers meant to bolster security- the
alliances bound the great powers to come to
each other’s aid in the event of attack
 Germany and Austria-Hungary
 Russia and France
 Great Britain and France- looser alliance
called the Entente Cordiale or simply
Entente
 Triple



Entente
Great Britain
France
Russia
 Triple



Alliance
Germany
Austria-Hungary
Italy
Begins
 http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/maps/index.h
tml
 While
in Sarajevo, Francis Ferdinand, heir to
the Austrian throne, and his wife, Sophia,
were assassinated
 Black Hand- Serbian terrorist organization
dedicated to the creation of a pan-Slavic
kingdom
 Austria-Hungary
declares war on Serbia
 Serbia’s protector, Russia, mobilizes as well
as France, Russia’s ally
 Germany demands that Russia stop
mobilizing. When Russia refuses, Germany
declares war on Russia
 Germany develops first strike strategy
(Schlieffen Plan) and passes through Belgium
a neutral territory causing Great Britain to
enter the war
 All world powers now a part of the war!
Central Powers
Allies
Germany
Russia
Austria-Hungary
France
Serbia
Great Britain
The War
 Western



Front
Schlieffen Plan fails- Germany stopped 20 miles
outside of Paris at the First Battle of Marne
Stalemate- two lines of trenches extended from
the English Channel to the frontiers of
Switzerland
trench warfare kept both sides virtually
immobilized for four years
 Eastern




Front
Russians decisively beaten at the battles of
Tannenburg and Massurian Lakes- Russians no
longer threat to German territory
After initial Austrian defeats, German-Austrian
army push Russians back 300 miles into their own
territory
Russian casualties stood at 2.5 million killed,
captured, or wounded. The Russians had almost
been knocked out of the war!
Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians attack Serbia
and eliminate Serbia from the war
 After
successes on the Eastern Front,
Germany again focuses offensive in the west.
 Trench warfare leads to massive deaths and
unimaginable horrors
 1917- Not a good year for the Allies!


Italians badly defeated
Russia withdraws from the war- Bolshevik
Revolution
 Central




Powers
Germany
Austria-Hungary
Ottoman Empire
(1914)
Bulgaria (1915)
 Allies
Russia
 Serbia
 France
 Great Britain
 Italy
 U.S. (1917)

U.S. tries to remain neutral
 Sinking of the Lusitania

May 7, 1915- Germany sinks British Lusitania as part
of unrestricted submarine warfare- 100 American
deaths result
 Germans stop unrestricted submarine warfare to
appease Americans


Zimmerman telegraph
Germans want to start unrestricted submarine
warfare again to starve out the British
 German foreign minister Alfred von Zimmerman
secretly encourages Mexican government to launch
attack to recover lost Mexican territories
 British intercept and decode telegraph and show it to
U.S. diplomats in London

April 6, 1917

Extension of Government power to meet war
time needs


Mass conscription/military draft
Free-market capitalistic systems temporarily shelved
as governments experimented w/



Expansion of police powers to subdue dissatisfied
populations


price, wage, and rent controls, the rationing of food
supplies and materials, the regulation of imports and
exports, and the nationalization of transportation
systems and industries
All citizens constituted a national army dedicated to
victory
Dissenters suppressed and censorship of newspapers
Made active use of propaganda to arouse enthusiasm
for the war

End to unemployment


Withdrawal of millions of men from the labor market
to fight + heightened demand for wartime products
led to jobs for everyone
New roles for women
Called upon to take over jobs and responsibilities that
had not been available to them before, including jobs
that had been considered beyond their abilities
 Women begin to demand equal pay for equal work
 Temporary?
 Leads to new independence- young women took jobs;
had apartments; smoked in public; wore shorter
dresses; cosmetics; new hair styles

 Last
German gamble to break stalemate in
the west
 Germans launch grand offensive in the west
 Allies launch counterattack using fresh
American troops and defeat Germans at the
Second Battle of Marne on July 18
 Allied forces advance steadily on Germany
 Exhausted and angry German people
establish a new republic and force William II
to abdicate
 End of the War- November 11, 1918
 10


million soldiers dead
5 million Allied
3.5 million Central Powers
 Civilian

deaths were nearly as high!
Almost 2 million in France alone (1/10 of the
entire male population!)
Peace Settlement
 Attended
by delegates from 27 Allied nations
 Wilson- Fourteen Points- outlines
justifications for the enormous military
struggle
 Later spelled out additional steps for a truly
just and lasting peace
 Too idealistic in the face of more pragmatic
leaders?
 Lloyd
George- British Prime Minister who had
won a decisive electoral victory on the
platform of making Germany pay for the
dreadful war
 Georges Clemenceau- French premier who
had led his country to victory and wanted
Germans to pay
 Woodrow Wilson- U.S. President that wanted
international cooperation- wanted to create
a League of Nations to prevent future wars
 Creation
of a League of Nations- tabled for
duration of conference
 France wanted a separate Rhineland as a
buffer state, but accepted a defensive
alliance w/Great Britain and U.S. who
pledged to come to the aid of France if
attacked by Germany
 Five separate treaties with the defeated
nations


Considered a harsh peace by Germans
Especially unhappy with the guilt clause




Declared Germany and Austria responsible for starting the war
and ordered Germany to pay reparations for all the damage to
which the Allied governments and their people had been
subjected to as a result of the war “imposed upon them by the
aggression of Germany and her allies”
Had to lower its army to 100,000 men; Reduce its navy;
Eliminate its air force
Return Alsace and Lorraine to France and section of Prussia
to the new Polish state
German land west and as far as 30 miles east of the Rhine
was established as a demilitarized zone and stripped of all
armaments or fortifications to serve as a barrier to any
future German military moves westward against France
Extensively redrew the map of Eastern Europe!
 German and Russian empires lost considerable
territory
 Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared
 New nation-states


Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary
Romania gained lands from Russia, Hungary, and
Bulgaria
 Serbia formed the nucleus of a new South Slav
state called Yugoslavia which combined Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes

 Paris
Peace Conference attempted to draw
territorial lines according to the principle of
self-determination, but the mixtures of
peoples in eastern Europe made it impossible
to draw boundaries along neat ethnic lines
 Compromises were made . . . Sometimes to
satisfy the national interest of the victors
 Result- virtually every eastern European
state was left with a minorities problem that
could lead to future conflicts!
 Germany and Russia did not accept these
changes