Chapter 8 Section 1-3 Notes

Rivalries among European nations led to the outbreak of war in 1914.

War names

  • The Great War
  • The War to End All Wars

Causes of the War

  • Nationalism
  • Imperialism
  • Militarism
  • Alliances

Triple Alliance aka Central Powers

  • Austria-Hungary
  • Germany
  • Ottoman Empire
  • Italy (switches sides)
  • Bulgaria

Triple Entente aka Allie Powers

  • Serbia- Italy
  • Russia- Great Britain
  • France
  • United States

War Breaks Out

  • Austria-Hungary controlled Bosnia.
  • Serbia was trying to get Bosnia to revolt against Austria-Hungary.
  • Franz Ferdinand is the heir to the Austria-Hungary throne & he was assassinated in Sarajevo.
  • The Serbian government had supplied the assassins with bombs and weapons.
  • Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for Ferdinand’s murder on June 28, 1914.
  • Black Hand: Serbian group that assassinated Ferdinand.
  • Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

Schlieffen Plan

  • Count Alfred von Schlieffen: German military leader
  • Defeat France quickly and stall the Russians
  • After France falls, turn both armies on Russia
  • Failure of the Plan resulted in trenches being built in a flanking of each other in a “race to the sea” causing a stalemate. The German army was split into two fighting forces. Eastern & Western Front.
  • French soldiers fought old style of war, wore red uniforms and swords.
  • Germansused camouflage & used machine guns.

Trenches were dug to protect soldiers from enemy fire

  • These trenches stretched for some 400 miles
  • This type of fighting is known as trench warfare

Trench warfare created a stalemate, or deadlock

  • Both the Allies and theCentral Powers begin looking for new ways to gain an advantage.
  • Barbed wire lined the trenches making it hard to cross the battlefield

New Weapons

  • Poison gas
  • Machine gun
  • Flame thrower
  • Grenade launcher
  • Tanks
  • Big Bertha
  • Zepplin
  • Red Baron
  • German Pilot who shot down 80 Allied planes before he was shot down in 1918.
  • Painted his aircraft RED so the enemy could see him coming.

The United States in World War I

  • The United States helped turn the tide for an Allied victory in Europe.
  • Americans not interested in the war until the sinking of the Lusitania.
  • Wilson’s policy of isolationism - to not being involved in foreign affairs.
  • Supported by most Americans
  • American Concerns
  • a. Germany’s war tactics
  • b. Germany’s invasion of Belgium.

U.S. had greater political, cultural, and commercial ties to Great Britain and France than Germany.

  • Britain was purchasing nearly $75 million worth of war goods from U. S. business each week.
  • Germany suffered under the British blockade.

Germany fought back with the U-boats. (unterseeboot)

1915, Germany announced that the waters around GB would be a WAR ZONE.

  • Germany warned the U.S. that neutral ships might be attacked as well.
  • The German plan for unrestricted submarine warfare angered Americans, and Wilson believed it violated the laws of neutrality.
  • 1915, Germany sank a luxury passenger ship to Great Britain called the Lusitania, killing many, including 128 Americans.

Wilson called for an end to unrestricted submarine warfare.

Germans

  • agreed to attack only supply ships
  • later sink the French passenger ship Sussex, killing 80

Sussex Pledge- Germany promised not to sink merchant vessels “without warning and without saving human lives.”

Zimmerman Note

  • Telegraph from Germany to Mexico pledging a secret alliance if the United States joined the Allies.
  • The Mexicans declined, but the British decoded the note, and Americans call for war.

April 6, 1917, the United States joined the Allies.

  • - Needs to raise an army
  • - Train soldiers
  • - Transport supplies & soldiers

Wilson’s reason for going to war was to “MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY.”

Raising an Army

  • Selective Service Act (1917)
  • Men between the ages of 21 and 30 had to register for the draft.
  • "Black Jack" Pershing led the AmericanExpeditionary Force in World War I.
  • General Pershing wanted his soldiers to be well trained.
  • Wanted US soldiers under US command
  • Blacks– were in segregated units & not allowed in the navy, the marines, or to pilot planes
  • Mostly noncombatant roles

Alvin York - was a U. S. soldier, famous for both his being a conscientious objector and hero in World War I.

  • Shipyard workers were not drafted.
  • Fabrication: assembly line method of ship-building.
  • U.S. troops arrived in France in 1917 through a convoy system. (used for protection)
  • Convoy’s reduced the number of ships sunk and limited the loss of troops and supplies.

Armistice - the end of a war, when the warring parties agree to stop fighting.

  • Late 1918 the war was crippling the German economy: many civilians lacked food and supplies.

Germany forced to:

  • leave all territories it had occupied
  • surrender its aircraft, heavy artillery, tanks, and U-boats
  • Allow Allied troops to occupy some German territory.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice went into effect.

  • Everyone hoped that the Great War would be the “war to end all wars.”
  • "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."
  • Limeys: nickname for British soldiers
  • Doughboys: nickname for the American soldiers

Paying for the War

  • War Revenue Act of 1917
  • - Established very high taxes
  • - Taxed the wealthiest Americans as much as 77% of their annual incomes.

Liberty Bonds

  • - loan from the American people to Regulating Industry
  • 1. War Industries Board (WIB)

regulated all materials needed in the war effort.

  • C. Regulating Food
  • Food Administration slogan was “Food Can Win the War.”

Conserving Food

Victory Gardens: private gardens which allowed farmers to ship food to soldiers.

Special days of week to go “less” in order to send food to Americansoldiers

  • “Meatless” Mondays
  • “Wheatless” Wednesdays
  • “Sweetless” Saturdays

National War Labor Board

  • 1. Judged disputes between workers and management
  • 2. 8 hour work day
  • 3. Urged businesses to recogniz labor unions
  • 4. Promoted equal pay for women

Women’s War Efforts

  • 1. Women moved into jobs that where traditional for men
  • 2. Red Cross: volunteered as nurses in Europe
  • 3. Almost all women lost their jobs when the men returned home

Influenza Epidemic on the home front

  • 1. Killed 500,000 Americans
  • 2. Killed 40 million world wide

“shell shock”: battle fatigue and emotional breakdown

trench foot: toes would rot due to wet socks and boots

The Great Migration:

  • 1. 1 million blacks moved from the South to cities in the North
  • 2. Reasons:
  • a. racism
  • b. crop failures
  • c. jobs in the factories in the North

Propaganda

  • 1. Information given by the gov’t. to make people think a certain way
  • 2. Posters, newspaper stories, speeches
  • 3. Created Hate of Germans in US
  • Anti-German; many were fired, beaten or lynched

Espionage and Sedition Acts:

  • - suspended the 1st Amendment rights for anyone who protested the government or the war
  • - could be fine up to $10,000 and/or sentences to 20 years in prison

Treaty of VersaillesFourteen Points:

  • Wilson’s plan for world peace
  • 2. Rejected by the Allies b/c it did not punish Germany
  • League of Nations
  • organization of countries to discuss problems to prevent war
  • - The only part of Wilson’s 14 points that was adopted

GERMANY MUST PAY

  • Demilitarizationreduce the military
  • Pay Reparations $33 billion to England and France for war damages
  • War-guilt ClauseGermany had to admit it caused the war

Impact of WWI

  • PoliticalOverthrew of the monarchies in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire.
  • EconomicU.S. emerged as the world’s leading economic power.

German Problems

  1. Germany could not afford to pay the reparations.
  2. Germany sank into a deep economic depression.
  3. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party take control of the German government.
  4. Blamed Jews and Socialists for the economic depression.