•Suspicion of Alliances•Weapons of Destruction: Machine Guns, Artillery, & Gas•Trench Warfare•Major Events and Battles•Casualties and Cost

World War I (August 1914 - Nov. 1918)

Suspicion and Alliances

•Triple Alliance (Central Powers)-Germany, Austria, Italy(Ottomans replaced Italy in 1914), & the Triple Entente(the Allies) Great Britain, France, & Russia.•Europeans deeply distrusted each other.•Nationalism pushed countries--France to regain Alsace-Loraine, Serbia to Ind.,Russia to Pan-Slavism, Germany to industrialize and Militarism.•Countries formed mutual protection treaties to protect themselves from potential enemies.These treaties promised each others support if it got into a dispute with another country.

Paris: The First Day of Mobilization, Sunday August 2 1914

An outpouring of patriotism greeted the proclamation of war. Huge crowdsthronged the avenues & squares of capital cities to express their devotion totheir nations and their willingness to bear arms. Many Europeans regarded it as a sacred moment that held the promise of adventure and an escape from ahumdrum existence

WEAPONS OF DESTRUCTION•Industrialization & advances in technology:armored vehicles, submarines (u-boat), aircraft (Zeppelins & Planes), bombs,flame-thrower, tank, poison gas, grenades, & the machine gun.

•Warfare strategies had not adapted to these new weapons. -old method of men marching in orderly rows and columns backed by cannon fire and Calvary charges proved ineffective.

The Machine Gun: replaced the single-fire, short range rifle.The British Vickers fired 8 rounds per second, at a distance of 2,900 yards.

Super Killing Machines: •They drove men out of their orderly rows & into trenches and foxholes.•The war, instead of being a battle of miles, became one of inches with eachside entrenched in underground shelters.

Artillery: Modern industry and the arms race created artillerythat fired with greater power and carried much farther than before.

Battle of Verdun:

•24 million shells used, whichequated to 1,000 shells persquare meter of the Battlefield.

CHEMICAL WARFARE

Types: Mustard, Chlorine, & Phosgene•Drifted in the wind--often affected their own troops

•Burned body, lungs, caused blindness, asphyxiation, and death

•Chemical Warfare banned afterWorld War I

Survivors of a Gas Attack

TRENCH WARFARE

Trenches stretched for 475miles, from the North Seain No. France to the Mts.. ofthe Swiss Border.

Trench Line Along Western Front

Soldiers preparing to go ‘over the top.’

Trench warfare consisted of mass charges of infantry preceded bylong artillery bombardments.

•Strip of territory between trench lines, laden with barbed wireand landmines.•Average width--250 yards

View of ‘no man’s land’

Few soldiers ever made it to the other side’s trenches.

•Dangerous, boring, and terrifying•Subjected to constant artillery bombardment•Sell shock and disease--typhus & trench foot

Life in the Trenches

Crowded, damp, muddy & rat infested

Battle of Tannenberg May-August 1914

•Germans & Austrians push Russiansout of East Prussia & Carpathian Mts.

•Russians retreat beyond Brest-Litovsk,Poland.

•Russia--one million killed or wounded;one million captured.

Battle of the Marne Sept.-Nov. 1914

•Germans encounter heavyresistance at the Marne River

•French & Germans dig defensive trenches

•Halts German offensive

Battle of Ypres, Belgium November 1914

•Last open Battle of the Western Front

•British and French halt German advance to English Channel

•German & French Casualties: 300,000 killed; 600,000 wounded

Battle of Salonika, Greece Nov. 1915

•Allies sought to aid Serbia againstBulgaria(joined Central PowersOctober 1915).

•By December, Serbia crushed byGermany, Aust-Hungary, & Bulgaria

•Tied up 500,000 Allied troops.

Battle of Gallipoli April-Dec. 1915

•Open the Dardanelles to supply Russiathrough the Black Sea.

•Prevent Turks from disrupting SuezCanal trade.

•Strengthen British colonial interestsin the Middle East.

Gallipoli 1915

Allied troops, mostly ANZUS (Australian & NZ, lostbetween 200-400,000 before retreating.

Battle of Verdun February-July 1916

•German general staff believed they could win a war of attrition with the Allies.•Verdun, a series of fortifications in rolling hills.

•Almost 1,000,000 killed or wounded.

•French lost 325,000 (90,000 killed), in one assault at “Dead Man’s Hill.”

Battle of the Somme July-Nov. 1916

•British agreed w/French that a massive assault on German forces would turnthe tide.•After a week of constant bombardment, the British came out of their trenches.

•By the end of the first day, British casualties were 110, 000 (19,000 dead).

Battle of the Somme 1916

•Britain lost 420,000; France-200,000; Germany-650,000.•More British soldiers died in the first three days at the Somme than Americans in WWI, Korea & Vietnam combined.•Ends in a Stalemate

•Armistice signed on November 11, 1918 @ 11 am•10 million soldiers killed, 20 million wounded

•Homelessness, food shortages & high prices•13 million civilians killed: disease, famine & injuries

•Industry & manufacturing dropped 25% below 1914 levels•Cities lay in ruins, transportation in some areas was impossible•Estimated total cost: $350 billion

Ideals were destroyed & most Europeans were ashamedas they looked at their huge cemeteries.

Reshaped the map of Europe•8 new nations in Europe: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,Yugoslavia, Finland, & the Baltic States (Latvia, Estonia, & Lithuania

•4 new mandates in the Middle East (from Ottoman Empire):Syria, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Palestine

•League of Nations--attempt to create an international organizationto settle disputes before they escalated to war

Bibliography

Brouwer, Rene. The First World War 1914-1918. Available at http://home.zonnet.nl/rene.brouwer/

Carlson, Robert. The Great War. The Great War Webring. Available at http://www.westfront.de/

Iavarone, Mike.World War One. Trenches on the Web. Available at http://www.worldwar1.com/

Roberts, J.M., A History of the World. Viking Penguin: New York 1995.