World War I

Failure of the Schlieffen Plan

• Failure of French to advance on left flank

• Belgian resistance

• Russian advances on the Eastern front

• British support for French

The Western Front• German advance

stopped at the Marne

• Trench warfare

• Stalemate

• War of attrition

The Western Front (cont.)

• Examples:– Battle of Verdun

– Battle of the Somme

• Millions dead, with little territorial gain

The Eastern Front• Russia made initial gains

• Germans countered at Tannenberg & Masurian Lakes

• Russians pushed back; but Germans main focus was in the West

Alliances• The Central Powers– Austria-Hungary

– Germany

– Turkey

– Bulgaria

• The Allies– Serbia

– Russia

– France

– Britain

– Japan

– Italy

The Middle East

• The Allies tried to take control of the Dardanelles & Bosporus

• The British failed to capture Gallipoli

The Role of Technology• Advanced weapons greatly

increased casualties & horrors of war

• Strategies often did not account for new technologies

– Machine Guns– Artillery– Poison gas– U-boats– Airplanes– Barbed wire– Tanks

Appeals to Nationalism

• Both sides tried to incite nationalist uprisings within territories of their enemies– E.g. Irish, Flemings, Poles,

Czechs, Ukrainians

• Most successful in inciting Arabs against the Turks

The War at Sea• British imposed a blockade and

seized neutral ships

• Germans countered with unrestricted submarine warfare

• May 1915, Lusitania sunk; Germany stopped unrestricted sub warfare due to US objections

• April 1916- Battle of Jutland; only naval battle of the war; Germans failed to break the blockade

Russia’s Exit• Russia was losing

• 1917 Russian Revolution

• 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; Russia out of the war

US Entry• British blockade caused

hardship for Germany

• Resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare

• The Zimmerman Telegram

• April 1917 US declares war

The Home Front• “Total War”

• Extensive use of propaganda• Governments took greater control of

economies– rationing– Cooperation with private sector and

with labor unions

• Lower classes benefited

• Women’s roles changed

The End of the War• March 1918- Germany launched the “Spring Offensive” but was unsuccessful

• US troops had begun arriving

• By Sept.1918, Gen. Ludendorff realized that defeat was inevitable; gave power to the Reichstag led by the Social Democrats

• Oct. 1918- Rebellions in Austria-Hungary

• Oct-Nov. 1918- desertions & mutinies in German military; “Workers & Soldiers Councils” take over many local governments

• Nov. 9, 1918- Kaiser William II abdicated

• Nov. 11, 1918- Armistice signed