Page 538 in your textbook

Causes

• 19th century liberals believed that if European states were organized along national lines, these states would work together and create a peaceful Europe. They were very wrong.

•M-A-I-N

• Causes of WW1:

A. MilitarismB. Alliances. C. Imperialis

mD. Nationalis

m

What is Nationalism?•One of the most important forces of the 19th century.

•The sense of unique identity of a people, based on a number of common elements:

Nationalism• Led not to cooperation but to competition• Each nation state felt it didn’t need to obey

any higher authority, they were guided by their own self-interests and success.

• Most European leaders at this time thought war was an acceptable way to preserve their power.

• These factors made war a possibility.

• Not all ethnic groups had become nations in Europe

• Slavic minorities in the Balkans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire still dreamed of their own national states.

• The Irish in the British Empire and the Polish in the Russian Empire had similar dreams.

Ethnic Minorities

Imperialism• Imperialist expansion in the late 19th century

also played a role in the coming of war. • Competition for lands overseas, especially in

Africa, led to conflict and increased tension.

Industrialization

• Industrialization: new methods of shipbuilding, new use of iron, steel, and chemicals for new weapons

• New weapons of WW1:• Machine guns• Tanks• U-boats (submarines)• Zeppelins• Poison gas

Bellringer

• What role did Nationalism and Imperialism play in causing World War 1?

Militarism

• Militarism was also growing in this time.• Militarism – the aggressive preparation for war• Military leaders drew up complex plans for

mobilizing millions of soldiers and huge supplies in the event of war.

Militarism• Growth of mass armies and navies after 1900

raised tension in Europe. • Most Western countries established conscription

(military draft) before 1914.

Draft Registration Card

Militarism• European armies doubled between 1890 and 1914.• Russia’s army of 1.3 million became the largest. • French and German armies - 900,000 soldiers each. • British, Italian, Austro-Hungarian armies between

250,000 and 500,000 each.

WW1 Recruitment posters

Alliances

• A system of alliances increased dangers of militarism.

• Europe’s great powers had been divided into two political alliances.

• Triple Alliance (formed 1882): Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Ottoman Empire.

• Triple Entente (formed 1907): France, Great Britain, Russia.

Alliances

• In early 20th century, a series of crises tested these alliances

• Balkans between 1908 and 1913.• Left European states angry at each other,

eager for revenge• European states were willing to use war to

preserve their power and their alliances.

Outbreak of War

• While nationalism, imperialism, militarism and alliances all played a role in starting WW1, it was the decision that European leaders made in response to a crisis in the Balkans that led directly to the conflict.

Assassination in Sarajevo and Responses

• By 1914, Serbia, supported by Russia, was determined to create a large independent Slavic state in the Balkans.

• Russia: leader of “pan-Slavic” movement. • Austria-Hungary, which had its own Slavic

minorities to deal with, was determined to prevent this from happening.

• On June 28th 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria Hungary, and his wife Sophia, visited the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia.

• A group of conspirators waited there in the streets.

• In that group was Gavrilo Princip, a 19 year old Bosnian Serb.

• Princip was a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist organization that wanted Bosnia to be free of Austria Hungary and to become a part of a large Serbian kingdom.

• An assassination attempt by one of the other conspirators failed earlier that day.

• Later in the day, Princip succeeded in shooting and killing the archduke and his wife.

• The Austro-Hungarian government did not know if the Serbian government was involved in the assassination, nor did they care.

• Austria-Hungary saw this as an opportunity to end Serbia’s resistance once and for all.

Gavrilo Princip

Archduke Francis Ferdinand

What was the cause of conflict that led to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip?

• Austrian leaders wanted to attack Serbia, but feared that Russia would come to their aid.

• So they asked for, and received, backing of their German Allies.

• Emperor William II of Germany gave Austria-Hungary a “blank check” promising Germany’s full support if war broke out between Russia and Austria-Hungary.

• On July 28th, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

Mobilization of troops

• Russia was determined to Support Serbia.• On July 28th, Czar Nicholas II ordered

mobilization of the Russian army against Austria-Hungary.

• Mobilization: process of assembling troops and supplies for war.

• In 1914, mobilization was considered an act of war.

Conflict Broadens

• Germany reacted quickly. • German government warned Russia that it

must end its mobilization within 12 hours. • Russia ignored the warning, Germany declared

war on Russia on August 1st.

Schlieffen Plan

• Like the Russians, the Germans had a military plan.

• General Alfred von Schlieffen helped draw up the plan which was known as the Schlieffen Plan.

• It called for a two-front war with France and Russia because the two had formed a military alliance in 1894.

• Germany would conduct a holding action against Russia while most of the army would invade France rapidly.

• After France was defeated, Germans would move east against Russia.

• August 4th – Great Britain declared war on Germany.

• By this time, all the great powers of Europe were at war.

Lesson 2 – World War 1

Pg 542

Call To Arms

• In August 1914, European governments had no trouble convincing men to fight for their countries.

• At this time, almost everyone believed the war would be over in a few weeks.

• Citizens who saw them off believed the soldiers would be home by Christmas.

1914-1915: Illusions and Stalemate

• Government propaganda: Ideas that are spread to influence public opinion, for or against a cause.

• Propaganda stirred hatred between nations before the war

The Western Front• German hopes for a quick end to the war

rested on a military gamble • The Schlieffen plan had failed. • German advance was stopped a short distance

from Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (sept 6-10)

• To stop the Germans, French military loaded 2,000 Parisian taxicabs with fresh troops and sent them to the front line.

• War quickly turned into a stalemate as neither the Germans nor the French could be moved from their trenches.

• stalemate: A situation in which further action is blocked; a deadlock.

• They were kept in nearly the same positions for four years.

The Western Front

The Eastern Front

• Unlike the Western Front, the war on the Eastern Front was marked by mobility.

• Russian army moved into eastern Germany but was defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg on Aug 30, and the Battle of Masurian Lakes on Sept 15.

• After these defeats, Russia was no longer a threat to Germany. The cost in lives was enormous

• Russian casualties stood at 2.5 million killed, captured, or wounded.

• The Russians were almost knocked out of the war.

• Austria-Hungary, Germany’s ally, wasn’t as successful early on.

• They had been defeated by the Russians and thrown out of Serbia as well.

The Eastern Front

Italy

• Italians betrayed their German and Austrian allies in the Triple Alliance by attacking Austria in May 1915.

• Italy joined France, Great Britain, and Russia, who were previously known as the Triple Entente, but now called the Allied Powers, or Allies.

• Encouraged by their success against Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary joined by Bulgaria in Sept 1915, attacked and eliminated Serbia from the war.

• Successes in the east allowed German troops to move back to the offensive in the West.

The Central Powers

Trench and Air Warfare

• On the Western Front, trenches dug in 1914 became elaborate systems of defense by 1916.

• Germans and French each had hundreds of miles of trenches, protected by barbed wire up to 5 feet high and 30 yards wide.

• Concrete machine gun nests and heavy artillery protected the trenches.

• Troops lived in holes in the ground, separated by a strip of territory known as “no man’s land”

Trench warfare: new kind of war

• Military leaders had been trained to fight wars of movement.

• Began with artillery barrage to flatten barbed wire and shock the enemy.

• Then, a mass of soldiers would climb out of the trenches with bayonets, hoping to work their way toward enemy trenches.

• Men would advance unprotected across open fields and were fired at by enemy’s machine guns.

• In 1916 and 1917, millions of young men died in this fashion.

• In 10 months at Verdun France, 700,000 men died over a few miles of land.

• WWI had turned into a war of attrition, a war based on wearing down the other side with constant attacks and heavy losses.

Bellringer

• Write a one paragraph response on the following question:

How had World War 1 become a war of attrition?

*pg 544

War Planes

• By end of 1915, airplanes appeared on the battlefield for the first time in history

• First used to spot enemy’s position• Soon planes began to attack ground targets,

especially enemy communications.• At first, pilots fired at each other with

handheld pistols.• Later, machine guns were mounted on planes.

Zeppelins

• The Germans also used giant airships, the zeppelins, to bomb London and eastern England.

• They caused minimal damage but scared many people.

• Germany’s enemies soon found out that zeppelins, filled with hydrogen gas, went up in flames when hit by antiaircraft guns.

A World War

• Because of the stalemate on the Western Front, both sides wanted new allies.

• New allies would provide an advantage in troops, money, and war goods.

• Bulgaria joined the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire)

• Allies (Russia, Great Britain, France) declared war on Ottoman Empire by landing troops at Gallipoli (SW of Constantinople) in April 1915.

• Campaign was disastrous, Allies withdrew.

World War

• By 1917 The war had become a world conflict• British officer stationed in the middle east

known as Lawrence of Arabia• Urged Arab Princes to revolt against their Ottoman overlords

Widening of the War

• By 1918 British forces from Egypt mobilized troops from India, Australia, and New Zeland to destroy the Ottoman Turks in the Middle East.

• The Allies took advantage of Germany’s preoccupations in Europe and lack of naval strength

• Seized German colonies around the world with help from alliances.

• Japan seized German held islands in the Pacific. Australia seized German New Guinea.

United States Enters

• At first, USA tried to remain neutral• Became more difficult• Immediate cause: naval war between

Germany and Great Britain

Blockades• Britain used superior navy to blockade

Germany, keeping war materials and goods from reaching Germany by sea

• Germany set up their own blockade of Britain and used unrestricted submarine warfare to enforce it.

Lusitania

• May 7 1915 - German forces sank British ship Lusitania• 1,100 civilians including more than 100

Americans died.• To avoid further antagonizing USA, Germans

suspended unrestricted submarine warfare on Sept 15th 1915.

USA Joins

• January 1917 – Germans resume unrestricted submarine warfare

• intended to starve British into submission.• Emperor William II was assured that not a single

American will land on the continent. • German officers quite wrong.• April 1917 US troops joined, but not in large numbers

until 1918• Gave psychological boost and major source of money

and goods.

Lesson 4 – World War I Ends

Last years of the war

• 1917 not a good year for Allies• Offensives on Western Front badly defeated• Russia withdraws from war after a Revolution• However, entry of USA in 1917 gave the allies a

psychological boost. • For Germany, withdrawal of Russia offered new

hope• Germany was now free to concentrate entirely

on the Western Front.

Final Push

• Germany made one final military gamble• March 1918 – grand offensive attack in the

West. • By April, German troops were 50 miles from

Paris• July 18th – German advance stopped at Second

Battle of the Marne.• French, Moroccan, American troops supported

by hundreds of tanks, held off the German advance.

Armistice• More than a million American forces poured

into France• Allied forces advanced towards Germany• Sept 29th 1918 – German General Ludendorff

told German leaders that the war was lost. • Nov 11th 1918 – Germans signed an armistice

to end the fighting.

Austria-Hungary

• Austria Hungary also experienced revolution• As the empire grew tired of war, ethnic groups

within sought independence• By the end of WWI, the Austro-Hungarian

empire ceased to exist. • The empire was replaced by independent

republics of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

Paris Peace Conference

• January 1919 – representatives of victorious allied nations met in Paris to make a final settlement of WWI

• Germany not invited to attend, Russia could not be present because of a civil war.

• Reasons for fighting the war changed dramatically • 1914 – European nations sought territorial gains• By 1918, they were voicing more idealistic reasons.

• Most important decisions at the Paris Peace Conference were made by:

• Woodrow Wilson (President of USA)

• Georges Clemenceau (French Premier)

• David Lloyd George (Prime Minister of Great Britain)

Woodrow Wilson

• Nobody was more idealistic than USA president Woodrow Wilson

• 14 points• Wilson portrayed WWI as a people’s war

against absolutism and militarism, enemies of liberty

• They could only be eliminated by creating democratic governments and an association of nations.

Great Britain and France

• David Lloyd George, newly elected prime minister of Great Britain, had a more simple plan: make Germany pay for this war.

• France’s approach was guided by national security• Georges Clemenceau, premier of France, expressed

that his people suffered the most from German aggression.

• Clemenceau wanted Germany stripped of their weapons, and also vast German payments – Reparations – to cover the cost of war.

Conflict

• No surprise that the three conflicted at the Paris Peace Conference

• Wilson wanted to create a League of Nations to prevent future wars

• Clemenceau and Lloyd George wanted to punish Germany

• Only compromise made it possible to create a peace settlement

Compromise

• Wilson’s wish was granted• January 25th 1919 – conference accepted idea

of League of Nations• Wilson compromised on territorial

arrangements between the countries. • Clemenceau obtained some guarantees for

French security.

Bellringer

• What was the Paris Peace Conference? Why was it held?

• What specific goals did Clemenceau (France), Lloyd George (Great Britain), and Wilson (USA) have in the Peace Conference?

Treaty of Versailles – June 28th 1919

• Final peace settlement consisted of five treaties with defeated nations (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey)

• Germans considered it harsh, especially the War Guilt Clause, which declared that Germany (and Austria) were responsible for starting the war.

Treaty of Versailles – June 28th 1919

• Germany was ordered to pay reparations for all damages that the Allied governments and people sustained during the war.

• Germany also had to reduce its army to 100,000 men, cut back its navy, and eliminate its air force.