Transcript The Great War: The World in Upheaval

The Great War: The World in
Upheaval
Nations Choose Sides
The Drift Toward War
• Nationalism creates a “place in the sun”
mentality
– threatens the stability of Austro-Hungarian
Empire and Ottoman
– combustible relationships between
Nationalist rivals grow with industrial,
colonial and military competition
– fear of isolation leads to the Triple
Alliance(Germany, Austria-Hungary and
Italy) and the Triple Entente(Great Britain.
France and Russia)
New Alliances
• Triple Alliance/Central
Powers grows out of
close German/AustroHungarian
relationship
• The Allies (Britain
France and Russia
sign a military pact in
1914
Kaiser Wilhelm
• Personal interest in
naval escalation
• Orders Krupp works
to increase weapon
production
• Frustrated by British
dominance in Africa
• Activated nationalist
pride
“Whatever happens we have got,
the Maxim gun and they have not”
• Assassination of
Archduke Ferdinand
“spark” that ignites
rivalries
• Russia backs PanSlavism concept
(self-determination)
• colonial disputes
and competition fuel
the fire
Small Spark Causes Great
Conflagration
• Gavrilo Princip and
The Black Hand
• Serbian Nationalism
• Austro-Hungarian
power struggle
• Germany supports
anti-Nationalist
movements
War Plans
• The Schlieffen Plan
• swift knockout of
France
• defensive action
against Russia
• move 180,000
soldiers and supplies
into France and
Belgium
• French Plan XVII
• ATTACK
• series of offensive
plans without thought
of enemies intentions
or casualties
The Guns of August
• New technologies
define the “Great
War”
• Dreams of glory and
honor Gott mit uns
• Declaration of war
results in attach on
Belgium
Global War
• Alliance systems bring in one nation
after another
– many nations had no idea what the fight
was about
• Enormous scope of WWI creates terms
like homefront and total war
• Technological advances create new
weapons of death
– tanks, grenades, chemical gas,machine
guns, barbed wire and air warfare
Concerns of the Entente
• Cultural similarities of German, AustroHungary
• Worries over two-front war
• Worries over English domination of the
sea
• Worries over possibility of French attack,
Russian interference over Austrian Balkan
policies
Trench Warfare and the
Western Front
• August 1914, 20 million soldiers
dispatched to the Western Front for “God,
King and Country”
• both sides “dug in” in trenches which ran
from the English Channel to Switzerland
• war of attrition fought for three years
• stalemate forces use of new
technologies(p.980)
The Great War 1914-1918
The Horrors of Trench Warfare
Stalemate
• Use of poisonous gas
to create advantage
• Air reconnaissance
– “Ace fighters”
• Machine guns and
repeating rifle noman’s land
No Man’s Land
"But No Man's Land is a goblin sight
When patrols crawl over at dead o'
night;
Boche or British, Belgian or French,
You dice with death when you cross
the trench“
• -James H. Adkin - No Man's Land
Manfred von Richthoven
The Red Baron
Brutality of New Warfare
• Unprecedented casualities
• Verdun, 1916
– 315,000 French killed
– 280,000 German casualties
– Less than 160,000 bodies recovered
• The Somme, British gain few thousand yards
– 420,000 casualties
– No significant strategic advantage
War Propaganda
Role of Public Opinion
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•
Beginning of media age
Availability of cheap newspapers
Little accountability
Awkward pressure on politicians
– Sacrifice diplomatic expediency for
public support
USA Enters the War
• US and the war economy
– Sale of goods to the Allies
– Debts to American banks
– US neutrality a mirage
• German blockade of British overseas trade
• Submarine patrols
• Sinking of Lusitania, 7 May 1915
– 1,198 lives lost (128 US)
– Carried munitions
• US declares war April 1917
Americans Entering the War
End of the Great War
• U.S. Enters the war in 1917 as a response
to German submarine warfare
• war leaves Europe’s peoples
decimated/estimated 15 million casualties
• Treaty of Versailles leaves a bitter legacy
– no Central Powers allowed to participate
– Russia/Soviet Union not present because of
revolution
– Germany punished heavily
The End of the Ottoman Empire
• Treaty of Sèvres (1920) removes Balkan
and Arab provinces, allows for European
occupation of south and east Anatolia
• Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) leads uprising
against Sultanate, creates Republic of
Turkey
• Allies recognize republic in Treaty of
Lausanne (1923)
• Intensely secular government, women’s
rights
Territorial changes in southwest
Asia after the Great War
Treaty of Versailles
• French demanded permanent weakening
of Germany
– Germany must accept full guilt and
responsibility of the war
– no navy or air force, army of only 100,000
troops for peacekeeping
– Central Powers must pay reparations
– no alliances
• Wilson accepts in order to pass his
League of Nations
Revolution in Russia
• WWI decimates Russia
• Tsar Nicholas II steps down in 1917
• dedicated socialist Lenin uses Bolshevik
party to seize power and provide
leadership to the workers (Source 991)
• under “Peace, Land and Bread” motto
Lenin leads October revolution
Collapse of the Russian Empire
• Russia: February Revolution, 1917
• Germany smuggles Lenin into Provisional
Government Russia
• October Revolution, creation of the USSR
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk cedes Poland, Baltic
countries, Ukraine to central Powers
Lenin