Transcript World War I: A New Kind of War

World War I: A New Kind
of War
CH 27 Section 2
The Belligerents
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The warring countries formed two powerful sides
{Central Powers-consisted of Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman
Empire
Allied Powers- were Great Britain, France, and
Russia}
The Central powers had the advantage of easy
communication and rapid troop movement
The allied powers had more troops and were
more industrialized than the central powers
This along with Britain having the largest navy in
the world allowed them to get food or raw
materials from anywhere in the world
It also gave them the ability to blockade the
central powers
Innovations in warfare
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Because WWI was an industrialized war
weapons were mass produced as never
before and were also trying new weapons
{The Germans were the first to effectively
use submarines (or U boats) in naval
warfare} along with poison gas on the
battlefield
Among new weapons were machine guns
and long range artillery
Machine guns originally were fired by a
team of people and to defend against
them trenches were dug
Continued
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{Another new weapon was the airplane} which
were mainly used for observing troop movement
at the beginning of WW I
Later they were used against other enemy
airplanes in dogfights and for dropping bombs on
enemy targets
{In 1916 Britain introduced the tank which would
tear through barbed wire and cut through enemy
defenses}
Even the soldiers were changed most fighting in
this war were drafted civilians and before they
were professional soldiers
The government also used propaganda to back
the war effort
Early years of the war
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Belgium wanted to remain out of the war
Germany asked to pass through on their
way to France and Belgium declined
{Germany went through Belgium anyway
bringing Britain into the war}
By September 1914 the {Germans were
as far as the Marne river on their way to
Paris when they met resistance from the
French and British}
The battle of the Marne changed the entire
nature of the war when both sides dug in
and soon had trenches dug from
Switzerland to the north sea
Trench Warfare
Western Front
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Late in August 1914 the Russians battled a
German force at the Battle of Tannenberg The
Russian army suffered a humiliating defeat.
About half its force was lost,
With this victory, the Germans launched an
offensive, moving into Russian Poland.
Russia did not have the weapons to equip its
soldiers properly
In 1915 Great Britain and France tried to change
this situation. They decided to try to force their
way through the Dardanelles so they could
capture Constantinople.
They hoped to remove the Ottoman Empire from
the war. Then they would be able to get needed
supplies to the Russians.
Naval Warfare
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{The British decided to blockade the North Sea to
keep merchant ships from reaching Germany}
At first the blockade was aimed at cutting off the
flow of raw materials to German factories
Eventually the blockade became an attempt to
ruin the German economy and starve the German
people.
In May 1916 the only large naval battle of the war
was fought, at the Battle of Jutland, in the North
Sea off the coast of Denmark
Both Germany and Great Britain claimed victory,
However, the German navy remained in port for
the rest of the war.
German U Boat
The Lusitania
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{In the process of this naval war a
German U boat sank the British passenger
ship the Lusitania}
The passengers on the ship included 128
Americans
The attack was denounced by Woodrow
Wilson and angered many Americans who
wanted to join the war
Understanding they could not afford
America entering the war, Germany
backed off their unrestricted submarine
warfare
The Lusitania
The Stalemate
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By late 1915 the war in the west had
become a stalemate on land as well as on
sea
Both sides wondered if they would be able
to break through the others front lines
Both sides continued to attack exchanging
small pieces of land and losing thousands
of lives in the process
The conflict became a {war of attrition
a slow wearing-down process in which
each side was trying to outlast the other}
The United States and World War I
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Most Americans had agreed with President
Wilson’s declaration in 1914 that the United
States should be neutral and that the war was
strictly a European affair.
According to international law, however, if a ship
carried contraband the goods could be seized.
British propaganda had a great influence on
Americans. Stories about German {atrocitiesbrutal acts against defenseless civilians}-angered
Americans. They did not realize that many of the
stories were exaggerated or not true.
{In January, Arthur Zimmermann sent a secret
telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico
proposing an alliance between Germany and
Mexico}
The Zimmerman note
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In the Zimmerman note Germany
offered to help Mexico regain
Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas if it
would help fight on Germany’s side
The British intercepted the telegram
and decoded it and it was then
published in American newspapers.
Americans were enraged.
America Joins the war
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After the Zimmerman note and the sinking of the
Lusitania the American people understood it was
a matter of time before they joined the war
As a result Germany continued their unrestricted
u boat attacks
None of the Central powers had a democratic
government while all of the allied powers had so
When revolutionaries in Russia overthrew the
czarist government president Wilson went to
Congress and said “the world must be made safe
for democracy”
On April 6, 1917 the Congress voted to declare
war on Germany
Review Questions
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Who made up the Central powers?
Who made up the Allied powers?
Who were the first to effectively use
submarines in war?
Name two new weapons used for the first
time during this war.
Germans were as far as the Marne river
on their way to Paris when they met
resistance from what two countries?
What was the name f the British
passenger ship the Germans sank?