NAME: ____________________________ PERIOD: ___ DATE: ____________

MRS. BRANFORD GLOBAL HISTORY 10

~ HOW WORLD WAR I ENDS ~

World War I Timeline

June 28, 1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo.

Dec, 1917

After a Communist revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks took over the Russian government. Russia leaves the war by signing an armistice with Germany, which ends the war on the Eastern Front. By this time, 5.5 million Russian soldiers had been wounded, killed, or taken prisoner.

Feb- Dec, 1916

The longest battle of the war, the Battle of Verdun, is fought to a draw (neither side winning) with an estimated one million casualties.

January, 1917

Zimmerman Telegram is sent. Many Americans supported the United States entering WWI after the telegram was discovered.

June, 1919

Peace Treaty signed by German delegates and Allies in Versailles, France.

Nov. 11, 1918

Allies & Central Powers agree to an armistice (an agreement to cease fire). Now celebrated as Armistice Day or Veteran’s Day.

July-Nov, 1916

The Battle of the Somme results in an estimated one million casualties and no advancement for the Allies.

April, 1917

The United States declares war on Germany and joined the British, French, and Russians. By 1918, two million US troops arrived in Europe. The newly fresh troops, supplies, and money from the USA provided the final push needed for the Allies to defeat the Central Powers.

Sept. 15, 1914

First trenches dug on the Western Front.

July 28, 1914-

August, 1915

The nations that make up the two major alliance systems in Europe declare war on one another.

Directions: Examine the timeline above, then answer the questions.

1. Based on the timeline, describe the progress of the war between 1914 and 1916

2. When did the United States’ enter the war? What impact did this have on the war?

3. When did Russia leave the war? Why did Russia leave the war? What impact did this have on the war?

Who should be blamed for World War I?

4. According to the political cartoon, which nation is most to blame?

5. Why did the Allies blame that nation?

The Peace Settlement

Directions: Read the excerpt below and respond to the questions.

The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 1919

Considerations for Peace Before the End of the War

Before the United States entered the war in 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson delivered his speech, “Peace Without Victory,” to the U.S. Senate. In this speech, he called for an agreed upon and sustainable peace where peace is not “forced upon the loser,” leaving the losers humiliated and resentful. He also said that “it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms [the war] ended” rather than that the war just ends. Concerned about how the world would emerge from the war, in a January 1918 address to Congress, Wilson proposed his Fourteen Points, which outlined his plan for achieving lasting world peace and he thought it would be the basis for the peace treaty at the end of the war. The first point being, “Open covenants [agreements] of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.” Wilson also called for a League of Nations, which was intended to be an international peace-keeping organization to help settle disputes between countries in the future.

6. What does “Peace without victory” mean?

7. Why do you think it is important that peace is not “forced upon the loser”?

8. What are the Fourteen Points? Who wrote the Fourteen Points? Why did he write it?

Peace Arrangements After the War

On November 4th 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to an armistice, and Germany agreed to an armistice on November 11th 1918, officially ending the war in victory for the Allies. In January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference met at Versailles, just outside Paris, to establish the terms of the peace after World War I. Though nearly thirty nations participated, the representatives of the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Italy became known as the “Big Four”. The “Big Four” dominated the proceedings that led to the creation of the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty that ended World War I. The Treaty of Versailles articulated the compromises reached at the conference.