The Stage is Set for War
 30 yrs of peace ends in Europe:
 Europeans had avoided war after the
Napoleonic Wars
 Short wars increase confidence, national
pride and willingness to form alliances


Crimean War
Franco-Prussian War
 There are four main reasons for World
War I …
1. Nationalism
“All’s Quiet on the Western Front”: Berlin
students on the way to enlist in 1914 for a summer war.
Nationalism
• Goes beyond pride in your nation
–More like ethnocentrism
–My country is good – all others are
bad
Europeans came, they saw, they conquered …
There was fierce competition for
colonies:
–
Growing Industrial nations needed:
• Colonial empires to provide
resources & markets
• “haves” vs. “have nots”
3. Militarism
3. Militarism- glorifying military
power w/ prepared army
Think “arms race”:
4. Entangling Alliances
Wanted alliance systems to
“balance power” – failed badly
• Germany: P.M. Bismarck– 1887
– Triple Alliance: Germany, Ottoman Turkey,
Austria-Hungary, & Italy; (Russia-nonaggression)
• Shifting alliances:
–Kaiser Wilhelm II (1918) dropped their
Russian alliance & started ship building
• 1907: Triple Entente: Britain, France &
Russia
Austria declares war on Serbia….
Triple Alliance vs. Triple Entente
Germany
Russia
stays neutral until 1915 Italy
Ottoman Empire
Britain
Bulgaria
France
Austria
Belgium
Central Powers vs. Allies
U.S. 1918
Immediate cause of the war:
“Powder Keg” of the Balkans: Serbia
1914
Assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria by
the Black Hand
5. Crisis in the Balkans: the
Powder Keg of Europe
• Assassination of Austrian heir:
–Archduke Franz Ferdinand & wife
Sophie – June 28, 1914 @
Sarajevo
• By Gavrilo Princip, Serbian radical
• July 28, 1914 - Austria declared
war on Serbia
Assassination by the Black Hand
Princip
**Western Front
Eastern Front
Southern Front
War Consumes Europe
• Alliance system collapses:
–Chain reaction-
• Schlieffen Plan –Germany attacks
France then turns on Russia
–Germany invades Belgium & Britain
declares war
–2 sides: Good guys = Allies
(Britain, France, Russia)
–Bad guys = Central Powers
(Germany, Ottomans, AustriaHungary, Bulgaria)
Schlieffen Plan
1st Battle of the Marne
1914
Western Front: Stalemate =
trench warfare
• 1st Battle of the Marne: French
& British hold Germany advance
• Trench warfare: 1915 -1918
–Trench, barbed wire, “no man’s
land” (field of artillery pot holes),
–New weapons: poison gas,
machine guns, armored tanks,
larger artillery, planes,
submarines
Trench Warfare:
Stalemate….
Or “Over the top”
1915-1918
Stalemate in the trenches!
Eastern Front: Russian border
• Central powers –
– Tannenberg: German victory against
Russia
• Russia’s War effort weakens: 1916
– Non-Industrialized Russia – shortage
of food, weapons, clothes, boots,
blankets, etc
– Extremely high casualties: 2 million+
Russians killed just in 1915
Czar Nicholas’s army: Peasant “volunteers”
No supplies & no training…..
Eastern Front:
Russians: massive defeats
Tannenberg, Lodz, Limanowa
1914;
Galicia 1915
Results: 2 revolutions-1917
1. Czar Nicholas II removed and…
2. 1918 … White v. Reds
Czar Nicholas to Kerensky to
the Communists (Lenin)
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918
War Affects the World
Global conflict:
– Fighting beyond Europe:
• Dardanelles – 1915: Battle of Gallipoli
–(see Mel Gibson’s movie)
–Defeat of Allies
– British T.E. Lawrence of Arabia – led
Arabs in guerilla war against Turks
• Germany lost: to Japan parts of China,
Pacific Islands; to Britain – African
colonies
• Gandhi in India helped British
1915
Battle of Gallipoli, Ottomans v. Australian troops
Beginning of technological warfare – Allies lose…
machine guns vs. horses & infantry
U.S. declares war: April 2, 1917
• Unrestricted submarine warfare
1917
– 1915: sinking of British Luisitania
– 1917: sank 3 US ships
• Feb 1917: Zimmermann Telegram –
– Promised Mexico of all lost land
• Traditional ties/ heritage w/ British
1917 Germany had 146 U-boats on patrol.
Race for armament led to war….
The following section is a REAL situation that occurred in WWI…
can you guess what? Read and decide what YOU would do…
UC 44 Class U-boat:
1) Aft torpedo tubes
2) Electric motor
3) Main engine
4) Control room
5) Mine tubes
6) Forward torpedo tubes
7) Crew quarters
Submarines were important in WW1.
They gave the Germans some control
over the British blockade. The war
effort was suffering because of lack of
supplies. If you were a sub commander
in the North Sea in 1915.
What would you do if…
1917, US Admiral William Sims
Problem:
You had to save ships in the submarine zone?
German U-Boat:
What would you do if you Didn’t
have control of the seas like Britain?
You are cruising on the surface off
the coast of Britain.
Suddenly you see eight destroyers
bearing down
on you. Choose one of 4 choices:
1. Full speed away.
2. Fire Torpedoes.
3. Quietly head for
the bottom.
4. Move in and fire
your deck gun.
*Justify your decision...
Next, you meet a small fishing v
You have the same 4 choices:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Full speed away.
Fire Torpedoes.
Quietly head for the bottom.
Move in and fire your
deck gun.
What do you do???
Your orders say that at this
time you should return
home, but you have some
torpedoes left and would like
to try a location off the
Coast of Ireland.
What do you do???
You see a large passenger liner moving
fast.
It will pass near you. You are
submerged.
Do you fire torpedoes before the ship
sees you?
Or, do you warn it before you fire?
Or, do you lie quietly and let it pass?
Explain your decision...
Congratulations! You just sank the Lusitania!
The Lusitania, a Cunard passenger liner that was
sunk by U-20 under command of Captain Schweiger
on May 7th, 1915 off the coast of Ireland.
124 Americans were among the 1,198 casualties.
The British steamship Lusitania is shown here
departing from New York on its last trip in 1915.
During this voyage a German submarine
torpedoed the ship off the Irish coast, causing it
to sink in 20 minutes; 1,198 people perished as a
result; 128 Am.
Notice!
Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are
reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and
her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of
war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that,
in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial
German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain,
or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters
and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great
Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
Imperial German Embassy
Washington, D. C., April 22, 1915
Is this warning enough?
Why?
Homefront: U.S.
• TOTAL WAR: all resources devoted to
war against all of the enemy (including
civilians)
• Rationing: limiting of goods needed for
fight the war (food for soldiers,
gasoline, medicine, etc)
• Propaganda: one sided information
designed to persuade
Rationing:
Propaganda
Women in the War
• Olveta Culp Hobby (wife of
Governor of Texas- created
WACs)
• Took over all nontraditional
jobs –factory, shipbuilding,
welding, construction,
farming, etc
Homefront: Women in Non-Traditional Roles
American Women shipyard workers, WWI
Allies win the war:
• Russia withdraws from Eastern Front:
Treaty of Brest Litovsk
– By 1917: loss of 5.5 million soldiers,
food shortages in cities, revolution
– Return of Communist Leader:
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
• March 1918: Germany – last major
offensive on Western front – 2nd Battle
of the Marne – won by US troops
• Armistice: Nov 11, 1918
THE BIG FOUR: Paris…1919
left to right, British David Lloyd George
Italian Vittorio Orlando
French Georges Clemenceau
U.S. Woodrow Wilson
A Flawed Peace – Treaty of
Versailles, Jan 18, 1919
• Allies’ Big Four:
–President Woodrow Wilson- U.S.
–PM Georges Clemenceau – France
–PM David Lloyd George – Britain
–PM Vittorio Orlando - Italy
Wilson’s 14 Points:
• Plan for world peace:
– 1st 4 points: end of secret treaties,
freedom of the seas, free trade &
reduction of armies & navies
– 5th: adjust colonial claims w/ fairness
– 6th-13th: specific suggestions for
changing borders & creating new
nations – self -determination
– 14th: League of Nations
Anti-League of nations
Actual Treaty of Versailles:
HARSH, Revenge – June 28, 1919
• Created League of Nations
• US – NEVER signed the Treaty –
Isolationists until Pearl Harbor
Europe Before & After War
Chart: WWI deaths
*
* more effectively killed larger numbers of people
: New Age of Industrial Technology
& Zeppelins (dirigibles)
& artillery
Submarines
Eddie Rickenbacker:
US Ace
26 downs (4 balloons)
*owner Indianapolis
Speedway
*president Eastern
Airlines
*writer
Manfred Albrecht Freiherr
von Richthofen
He Shot down: 80 planes
shot down & killed: April 21, 1918
GERMAN WWI ACE
By 1917 there were:
17,700 gas casualties & 1 out
of every 4 shells contained gas
The Arms of Krupp
This rail gun shot up to 30 miles!
With less accuracy,
This one shot up to
75 miles!
War in the
Industial Age!
British tank
Poison Gas warfare: outlawed
after the horrors of this war!
240,000+ British war amputees
When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again…..
1918
German General Ludendorff stages a final assault.
General Pershing
speaks to
Americans:
Leader of the
AEF
April 6, 1917:
US Declaration of War
Americans “Yanks” are “over there”….
*June 14, 1917 Pershing in Paris-1st words “Lafayette, we are here.”
WAR TIDE TURNS: Victory for Allies
*June 1, 1918 Chateau-Thierry
*Sept. 1918 Argonne Forest
-offensive
Belleau Wood: June 6-25, 1918
“The Yanks are coming…”
An Uncommon Heroine….carrier pigeons
were used to communicate during battles…
Saved the 77th US Infantry,under Major Whittlesey, -pinned by friendly artillery fire (later US won battle).
Awarded French metal of valor, Cher Ami was shipped home on
a luxury liner and given a ticker tape parade in New York!
“The War to end all Wars”….
WHAT HAPPENED?