Transcript Chapter 22

Chapter 22
• On June 28, 1914, a member of a Bosnian
nationalist organization assassinated the
heir to the Austrian throne, an act leading
to a war that would transform Western
society.
C. 1914 ODILON REDON
THE CYCLOPS
The July Crisis
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In the decades before 1914 Europe had built a seemingly stable peace. Through the
complex negotiations of Great Power geopolitics, Europe had settled into two
systems of alliance: the Triple Entente (Allied Powers) of Britain, France, and Russia.
The Triple Alliance (Central Powers) of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
Within this balance of power, the nations of Europe challenged one another for
economic, military, and imperial advantage.
The scramble for colonies abroad accompanied a fierce arms race at home, where
military leaders assumed that superior technology and larger armies would result in a
quick victory in a European war.
Yet none of the diplomats, spies, military planners, or cabinet ministers of Europe, nor
any of their critics predicted the war they eventually got.
Nor did many expect that the Balkan crisis of July 1914 would touch off that conflict,
engulfing all of Europe in just over a month’s time.
The Balkans
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The Great powers had long been involved in the affairs of southeast Europe.
The Balkans lay between two long-standing but increasingly vulnerable empires: the
Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman.
The region was also home to newly formed states under the sway of ambitious
nationalist movements, pan-Slavic ethnic crusaders.
Despite these entanglements, the Great Powers tried to avoid direct intervention,
seeking instead to bring the new Balkan states into the web of alliances.
In 1912 the independent states of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Montenegro
launched the First Balkan War against the Ottomans; in 1913, the Second Balkan
War was fought over the spoils of the first.
The Great Powers steered clear of entanglement, and these wars remained localized.
The link between Balkan conflict and continental war would be the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, which was struggling to survive amid increasing nationalist ambitions.
The “dual monarchy,” as it was called after reforms in 1867, had frustrated many
ethnic groups excluded from the arrangement.
The Balkans
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Czechs and Slovenes protested their second-class status in the German half of the
empire; Poles, Croats, and ethnic Romanians chafed at Hungarian rule.
The province of Bosnia was particularly volatile, home to Serbs, Croats, Bosnian
Muslims, and other ethnic groups and formerly part of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1878, Austria-Hungary had occupied and then annexed Bosnia, drawing hated and
resistance from most of Bosnia’s ethnic groups.
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria and heir to the AustroHungarian Empire, paraded through Sarajevo.
That afternoon, when the archduke’s car made a wrong turn and stopped to back up,
a nineteen-year-old Bosnian student shot Ferdinand and his wife at point-blank
range.
Shocked by Ferdinand’s death, the Austrians treated the assassination as a direct
attack by the Serbian government.
Eager for retribution, Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia.
The Serbs recognized the provocation and mobilized their army three hours before
sending a reply.
World War I
• Austria responded with its own mobilization and declared war three
days later, on July 28, 1914.
• For Russia, too, the emerging conflict was an opportunity to regain
some of the tsar’s authority by standing up for the rights of “brother
Slavs”.
• When the orders came down on July 30, Russia mobilized fully.
World War I
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The crisis spread, and the Germans were prepared.
Sitting in the most precarious geographic position.
As Russia began to mobilize, Kaiser William II sent an ultimatum to St. Petersburg
demanding that Russian mobilization cease within twelve hours.
The Russians refused.
Meanwhile, the German ministers demanded to know France’s intentions.
France replied that France would act in accordance with her interests, (which meant
an immediate mobilization against Germany.
Finally facing the dual threat it had long anticipated.
Germany mobilized on August 1 and declared war on Russia-and two days later, on
France.
Chapter 22
• Initial patriotic outbursts and national unity
were soon dulled by the destructive nature
of new weapons and fighting styles that
created a bloody deadlock on the
battlefield.
The Front Lines
• Off to Battle
– Celebrating War
• Almost everywhere in Europe, people greeted the
declarations of war with outbursts of nationalistic joy
– The Central Powers Versus the Allies
• Turkey and Bulgaria joined Germany and Austria-Hungary to
become the Central Powers
• Italy declared its neutrality, then shifted its loyalty to france
and Britain
• Many other nations from the Americas and the non-Western
world, became known as the Allies
The Schlieffen Plan
• Fearing a war on two fronts, the Germans adopted the Schieffen
Plan, to sweep through neutral Belgium and on to France, encircling
Paris.
• The aim was to knock France out of the war quickly before Russia
could mobilise its forces.
• The Germans advanced southwest through Belgium, where the
British made contact with them at Mon’s (border of Belgium and
France) on 23 August 1914.
World War I
• The British briefly halted the Germans, but where overwhelmed and
forced to retreat.
• The 200 mile retreat continued south for two weeks and ended on
the river Marne.
• Here both sides dug-in
The Front Lines
• Slaughter and Stalemate on the Western Front
– Trench Warfare
• The armies on the western front fought a war of attrition from
their networks of trenches protected by barbed wire, mines,
and machine guns
– Great Battles of 1916
• In 1916, the Germans tried for a victory by attacking the
French fortress at Verdun
• The British attempted a break-through in the Battle of the
Somme in northeastern France
– Weapons of War
• Airplane – used for bombing and intelligence
• Poison gas, flamethrowers, and tanks
• Dogs – used to search for wounded men
Race To The Sea
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Both sides tried to outflank each other to the north in what became known as the race
to the sea.
The Belgium city of Ypres was the final barrier between the Germans and the channel
ports, which the allies were determined to hold at all costs.
The Germans launched their first attack on Ypres in an attempt to break through but
were finally beaten off by the very last reserves of the old regular British army.
The German attack died away and Ypres was saved for the time being.
Both sides then settled down for the first winter of the war.
By early 1915 both sides had begun to adjust to trench warfare.
Second battle of Ypres, with massive fire power, the Germans sought to capture the
city.
During the assault they used chlorine gas for the first time, something the allies were
totally unprepared for.
There were 95,000 casualties in just over 30 days of fighting.
The Battle Of Verdun
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In 1916 the German solution to the stalemate was a huge offensive at Verdun.
Verdun was surrounded by a series of large forts.
In one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war, the French lost nearly 400,000
and the Germans almost 350,000 casualties.
In an attempt to relieve the French at Verdun, the British and French launched an
offensive on the Somme river, ( called the Big Push).
On the first day, 1 July, nearly 20,000 Britons were killed, and 40,000 injured or
captured.
By November the offensive had ground to a halt.
The allies had grained ground, but at a cost of 420,000 British and 195,000 French.
On 9 April 1917 the British attacked successfully at the city of Arras, the casualties
rate was 4,070 per-day.
The third battle of Ypres was launched by the British on 31 July 1917, 325,000 British
soldiers were lost, and the troops had advanced barely five miles.
The Front Lines
• Victory and Defeat on the Eastern and Southern
Fronts
– Russia’s Military Collapse
• Lack of effective leadership, insufficient supplies, and
desertions plagued Russia’s armies
– Southern Fronts
• In 1915, malaria, cholera, dysentery, and other diseases
spread among the troops fighting in the Middle East
• British and Arab forces gradually gained the upper hand
against the Ottoman Turks
• The War Spreads Across the Globe
Chapter 22
• World War I became the first total war as
all sectors of domestic society were
mobilized to support the military effort, in
the process transforming entire
economies, societies, and governments.
– Total War
• As the toll on lives and supplies climbed, whole societies had
to mobilize to support the military effort
War on the Home Front
• Mobilizing Resources
– Governments Take Control
• Government agencies determined production, consumption
wages, and prices
• Labor unions were brought into partnership with business
and government
• New Gender Roles
• Maintaining the Effort
– Propaganda
• Propaganda specialists tried to inspire support for the war
and hatred for the enemy
Chapter 22
– Rising Dissent
• Over time, even the strongest nations weakened
under the strains of total war
• The German military made a desperate
effort to defeat Britain and France before
America could send enough aid to make a
difference in the war, but the destruction
and death continued right up until the final,
bitter days of fighting.
Chapter 22
• The U.S. Enters the War
– German submarines began sinking American cargo
ships.
– On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on
Germany.
• Final Battles
– In March 1918, the British and French were driven
back with heavy losses
Chapter 22
• For all countries, the cost of the war in
human lives was immense, and financial
and material losses offered continuing
hardships during the recovery period.
Chapter 22
• The Treaty signed at Versailles, a
compromise between a “hard” peace and
a “just” peace, created new countries and
left many resentments as hopes went
unrealized.
The Peace Settlement
• Gathering at Versailles
• A Victors’ Peace
– Wilson’s Fourteen Points
• Wanted a “just” peace free of vindictiveness, and called for
the self-determination of peoples, armaments reduction, and
“general association of nations” to guarantee the safety of
“great and small states alike”
• Redrawing the Map of Europe
– The League of Nations
• Woodrow Wilson placed his chief hopes for peace in an
association of countries that he expected would guarantee
borders and peaceably settle the tensions and conflicts that
were certain to arise in the future
• Legacy of the Peace Treaty
Chapter 22
• Devastated by World War I and weakened
by the tsar’s refusal to enact real reform,
the Russian empire was toppled by
revolution in 1917.
• The First Warnings: 1905
Revolutions in Russia
• The Fall of the Tsar
– The March Revolution
• In early 1917, the strains of war drove hungry working
women to initiate strikes and demonstrations
• The Provisional Government
– The Soviets
• The political organizations of workers, soldiers, and radical
intellectuals
– Kerensky Leads
• In May, Alexander Kerensky became the leading figure in the
government
Revolutions in Russia
• The Rise of the Bolsheviks
– Lenin’s Principles
– The party should be an elite, highly trained and
constantly purged group of dedicated Marxist
revolutionaries capable of instructing and leading the
masses
– The socialist revolution need not include only the
industrial working class
– The party should firmly oppose participation in the war
– Russia’s July Days
– In July 1917, a massive popular demonstration against
the provisional government erupted. The provisional
government put down the demonstrators with force.
Revolutions in Russia
– The November Revolution
• On November 6, he and Trotsky launched a wellorganized seizure of power
• Communism and Civil War
Critical Questions
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On the Path to Total War
1.)Why did Princip assassinate Archduke Francis
Ferdinand?
2.)What was the European alliance system?
3.)How and why had it formed before 1914?
4.)How did nationalism and military buildup contribute
to the outbreak of war in 1914?
5.)Why were the Balkans an unstable area in the early
twentieth century?
6.)What were the roles of Germany's "blank check,"
Austria's ultimatum to Serbia, and Russia's
mobilization in starting the war?
To the Bitter End
7.)what events caused the United States to enter the war?
8.)How did U.S. participation influence the outcome of the war?
The Front Lines
9.)How did the outbreak of war initially serve to lessen domestic political
divisions?
10.)How was the Schlieffen Plan supposed to work, and when did it fail?
11.)How did trench warfare affect the fighting?
12.)How did soldiers sometimes react to their commanders' refusal to stop
short of anything other than complete victory?
13.)What effect did the war have on areas outside of Europe?
War on the Home Front
14.)Why was World War I considered a total war?
15.)What measures did governments take to mobilize resources for the war effort?
16.)How did the war change class distinctions and gender roles?
17.)What messages did wartime propaganda send?
18.)What domestic problems did countries experience during the war?
Assessing the Costs of the War
19.)What were the human costs of the war?
20.)What other losses did the participating countries face?
The Peace Settlement
21.)Which voices were most influential at the Paris Peace Conference? Why?
22.)In what ways was the Treaty of Versailles a peace for the victors?
23.)How did different countries feel about the Treaty of Versailles?
24.)How fairly or unfairly did the treaty resolve the conflict?
25.)What were the shortcomings of the treaty?