World War I

World War I

The Great War

What were the Causes of World War One?

What were the Causes of WWI?

• Nationalism• Imperialism/Colonialism• Militarism

What else?

• Diplomatic Failures• Alliance System

Pre-WWI Alliances

• 1882 Triple Alliance• 1894 Franco-Russian

Alliance• 1904 Entente Cordiale• 1907 Anglo-Russian

Entente

Alignment on the Eve of War

• Entente: Britain, France, Russia, US (sort of)

• Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

• June 28, 1914• Heir to Austro-Hungarian

throne• Killed in Sarajevo by

Serbian separatists• Austro-Hungarian Empire

accuses Serbian government of endorsing the assassination

The July Crisis

• A-H demands reparations from Serbian government, they refuse

• A-H declares war• Russia sees this as a

threat to their influence in the region, declares war on A-H

• Boom. WWI starts.

Kaiser Wilhelm II• Last German emperor and

king of Prussia• Aggressively pursued colonial

expansion• Alienates Britain with naval

expansion• One of the most hated men

in Europe outside of Germany• Offered full support to A-H as

Serbian crisis intensified

The Schlieffen Plan

• Germany knew it was going to face a 2-front war

• Predicted that Russia would be slow to mobilize

• Planned to defeat France quickly, then turn attention to Russia

• Basis of German strategy in WWI and WWII

The Western Front

• Germany invades Belgium in 1914, forces Britain into the war

• Constant fighting• 8 Million Entente

casualties• 5.6 Million Central

Power casualties

Trench Warfare

• The Western Front became an intricate series of trenches

• Snipers, machine guns, artillery

• Little protection from the elements

• Disease

The Vickers Machine Gun

First and Only Legal Use of Chemical Warfare

Why do you think chemical and biological warfare are now considered a war crimes?

Battle of the Marne, Sept. 6-10, 1914

• High-water mark of German dominance in the W. Front

• Germans planned to hit the northern flank of the French, push them back, encircle French army and Paris simultaneously

Battle of the Marne, Sept. 6-10, 1914

• France counterattacks, Forcing the Germans to move south of Paris, preventing encirclement

• Germans become bottle-necked in the Marne River Valley

• Halting Germany at the Marne was the first major German defeat of the war

Battle of Verdun, February-December 1916

• Longest battle of WWI• Verdun region held 20

major forts and 40 smaller forts

• German military realizes that a decisive victory here could be an immediate knock out punch

Beginning of the Battle

• Germany moves in 140,000 soldiers and 1,200 artillery guns that would put down 2.5 million shells on the French

• French forts weakened only 30,000 French soldiers in the region at the start

Flamethrowers

• First use of flamethrowers in combat was during the Battle of Verdun

• Use of flamethrowers in combat is now considered a war crime

Verdun

• Verdun quickly turns into a stalemate

• The Germans are unable to capture the city

• 360,000 Germans and 340,000 French are lost during the battle

The Somme

• Joint British-French attack• Entente leaders intend to

bleed Germany of resources• World War One military

strategy essentially assured a stalemate

Somme

• The battles of the Somme and Verdun were the epitome of World War One battles. Enormous troop movements and artillery bombardments that result in stalemates.