Humanities II(Honors)World War I (1914-1918)

  1. Background:
  2. Germany:
    1861: William I becomes King of ______.
    1871: At the end of the Franco-Prussian War, unification of the German ______, with Wilhelm I as Emperor (Kaiser) and Bismarck as the Iron ______(Prime Minister). This upsets the balance of ______in Europe established at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15). Bismarck’s policy was not to expand Germany’s ______, but just to preserve the ______of the Empire.
    1882: Bismarck forms the Triple ______of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
    1888-1918: Kaiser William II rules German Empire.
    1890: Kaiser Wilhelm II, who wants to ______Germany’s territory and to build a great ______, forces the moderate Bismarck to ______.
    1890: Germany lets its treaty with Russia lapse.
  3. Russia, France, and Britain.
    1894: Fear of Germany’s power prompts France to become allied with Russia in the Dual ______.
    1904: ______, alarmed by Germany’s navy, becomes allied with ______in the Entente Cordial.
    1905: Japandefeats ______in the Russo-Japanese War.
    1907: Russia becomes allied with BritainFrancein the Triple ______
  4. The (Hapsburg) Austro-Hungarian Empire:

This was a trans-______empire that feared it would be broken apart by the ______ambitions of its minorities, especially the Czechs and the South Slavs (=Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs).
For these reasons, Austria-Hungary saw any nationalist movements among its ______as a great threat to its own ______.
Accordingly, it strove to brutally ______any such movements.

  1. The Balkans (=the peninsula in southeastern Europe, bordering on the north with Austria and Hungary, on the west by the Adriatic Sea, on the south by the Aegean Sea, and on the east by the Black Sea):
    1878: ______Ottoman Empire abandons the Balkans (most of which it had ruled since 1459).
    1905:Russia and Austria make a deal:
    -Turkey allows ______warships to pass through the Dardanelles, the straits connecting ______’s Black Sea with the Mediterranean.
    -______annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina (=the South Slavs).
    1908:Bosnian Crisis:Serbia opposes ______’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina because of Serbia’s “Pan-Serbian” policy: it considers Bosnia and Herzegovina part of Great ______.
    1912:First Balkan War:
    -The Balkan states (Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece) attack the ______Empire.
    - ______gains the Albanian coast, and thus access to the Mediterranean.
    -Austria and Germany then force Serbia to give up ______.
    -______now agrees to back Serbia in any future conflict with ______.
  1. The Outbreak of War:
  2. The immediate causes of World War I:
    June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, ______of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and ______to the throne of Austria-Hungary, visits Sarajevo, the capital of ______(then part of Austria-Hungary). He and his wife are assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the pan-Serbian group “Young ______,” which advocated ______'s unification with Serbia and was aided by the Serbian nationalist terrorist group “Unification or______” (=the “______Hand”).
    July 23, 1914: ______gives Serbia an ultimatum: allow Austrian officials to enter Serbia to suppress elements hostile to Austria-Hungary or face ______.
    July 25, 1914: Serbia______the ultimatum.
    July 28, 1914: WWI begins when Austria declares ______on Serbia, and ______mobilizes against Austria.
    July 30, 1914: Pressured by Russian generals, Russia mobilizes also against ______.
    August 1, 1914: ______declares war on Russia.
    August 3, 1914: Germany declares war on ______.
    August 4, 1914: Germany invades ______on its way to France. ______comes to Belgium’s aid and declares war on ______.
  3. At the beginning of WWI, Europeans were generally ______about war. There are several reasons for this:
    -Europeans had forgotten the ______of war. There had been no ______European war for over 150 years (since the Seven Years’ War of 1756-1763). And there had been no ______war at all in Europe for over a ______(since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71).
    -______inspired the patriotic desire to become a national ______by giving one’s life for one’s country. Beginning with the First French Republic, national ______claimed to protect not just an individual ______, but universal ______.
    -______valued the all-out passion of battle as a ______calling, superior the dull ______of business, bureaucracy, ______, and technology.
  4. The war drags on:
  5. The Western Front:
    Germany and French forces dug ______along their border, separated by a “______’s land.”
    ______-gun emplacements made attacks into suicide.
    February 1915: ______attacks the ancient French fortress of Verdun. Over ______soldiers are killed, and Germany was forced to retreat.
    July –November 1916: ______and French forces attempt an offensive at the SommeRiver, losing 600,000 men.
  6. The Eastern Front:
    August 26-30, 1914: A Russian attack on Germany is ______at the Battle of Tannenberg.
    April 1915: ______had joined with Germany, and controlled the Dardanelles. This prevented ______from obtaining supplies through the Mediterranean Sea. Allied troops from Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand attack the ______-held GallipoliPeninsula on the European side of the Dardanelles. The Allies were ______, at a cost of 252,000 soldiers.
    May 1915: Italy enters the war on the side of the ______.
    1916-1917: Germany and Austria force the Italians to ______.
    November 1917: The ______Bolshevik Revolution in Russia promises “______, Land, ______”.
    March 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Russia surrenders ______, the Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltics to ______.
  7. The end of the war:

May 1915: A ______submarine sinks the British passenger ship Lusitania, killing about 1200passengers, including many ______.
January 1917: ______begins unrestricted submarine warfare to deprive ______of supplies. Germany torpedoed Allied and neutral ships near Britain.
April 6, 1917: The United States, led by President Woodrow ______, declares war on ______.
March 21, 1917: Germany launches an offensive on ______, before the United States could send many troops.
August 3, 1918: The Allies ______the German offensive.
Fall 1918: German ______forms a German ______, and forces Kaiser William II to abdicate. Austria-Hungary splits apart into various ______nation-states.
November 11, 1918: Germany signs an armistice with the ______, ending WWI.

  1. The Peace of ______(1919). January 1919: The Allies meet in Paris to draw up peace terms:
  2. Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) urged:
  3. The formation of the League of ______: an international parliament to settle ______among nations.
  4. The 14 Points: the self-determination of ______(i.e. each people should have its own free ______):
  5. Germany should return French-speaking Alsace-Lorraine (lost to Germany in Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71) to ______.
  6. Poland should become ______.
  7. ______should gain Italian-speaking lands in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  8. ______in the Austro-Hungarian Empire should be able to form their own states.
  9. “Peace without ______”: treat Germany fairly so that it would not seek ______in the future.
  10. The French diplomat Georges Clemenceau hated ______, and wanted to ______it for invading France and to prevent it from ever waging ______again.
  11. June 28, 1919: The Treaty of Versailles (the part of the Peace of Paris between the Allies and ______):
    ______itself—and not just Kaiser William II’s German Empire—was declared to be ______responsible for WWI.
    Germany was made to pay heavy and unspecified war ______to the Allies.
    ______regains Alsace-Lorraine.
    The German military was limited to 100,000 army volunteers and deprived of heavy artillery, ______, ______, and submarines.
    Germany’s Rhineland (on the border with France) is to be ______and occupied by the Allies for 15 years.
    The ______-rich Saar Basin is to be governed by the League of Nations for 15 years, after which time he inhabitants can decide whether to join France or ______.
    Danzig, an important ______on the Baltic Sea is to be taken from Germany and administered by the League of Nations. This gives ______access to the sea.
  12. The treaty with Austria:
    ______joins with the south Slavs to form Yugoslavia.
    Hungary becomes a ______country.
  13. Reaction to the Treaty of Versailles:
  14. The ______United States Congress refuses to ratify it.
  15. Germany completely resents it as ______. The new German ______should no have to pay for the mistakes of the old German ______.
  16. The effects of the War:
  17. Germany deeply ______the Treaty of Versailles.
  18. War had required a “______mobilization” (the title of Ernst Jünger’s 1930 book) of the ______of nations.
  19. The Enlightenment faith in ______was shattered (Oswald Spengler’s 1918-22 The Decline of the West):
  20. Science and technology had been used in WWI to ______people, not to ______them. Examples include machine-guns, artillery, and airplanes.
  21. Human reason had proved incapable of solving ______problems, and failed to ______WWI.
  22. The former Allies wanted to prevent future war at all costs: “Peace at ______price.”

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