Step I: Watch Video: the Shot That Started the Great War

The Great War

Background:

Great Britain noted after the Boer War in 1902 that the next war would be “extremely nasty business”. It was said long before WWI that if a war started it would be “because of some damn fool in the Balkans”. The Balkans, were in short—a tinderbox, ready to explode.

Austria-Hungary was a fading empire riddled by extraordinary diversity held together by Emperor Franz Joseph’s will. His son having recently committed suicide, Franz Joseph named his nephew Franz Ferdinand, archduke and heir to the throne of the polyglot empire.

Serbia was the largest and strongest nation in the Balkans. It had ambitions for a slavic empire, supported by Germany and Austria-Hungary’s enemy Russia. On the 525th anniversary of the Turks’ conquest of the Slavas the royal entourage carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand left the hotel for the city hall…protected only by the police riding in an open car. His last words to his wife were “Sophie, live for our children”. She died ten minutes later, both assasinated by a Serbian nationalist group—the Black Hand at the hand of Gvrillo Princip.

Step I: Watch Video: The Shot That Started the Great War

WWI Study Guide: Due day of test

1. What are the four causes of WWI, using your book and the video?
2. How does this assassination figure into the equation?
3. How does WWI qualify as a “World War” and not a European War?
4. Famed historian Howard Zinn once said

“Ten million were to die on the battlefield; 20 million were to die of hunger and disease related to the war. And no one since that day has been able to show that the war broughy any gain for humanity that would be worth one human life”.

—please assess the validity of this statement.

1. At the onset of the War, most felt it would be over by Christmas—they were quick to learn otherwise. What factors made this such a costly, bloody affair?
2. The Kaiser noted “No peace before England is defeated and destroyed.” George Clemenceau called for a “War to the death”. What role did political leaders play in perpetuating the confusing causes of WWI?
3. Examine the key battles of
4. Somme
5. Verdun
6. Marne
7. Why were the Europeans so enthusiastic at the beginning of World War I? What role would nationalism and propaganda play in this excitement? What would happen to this enthusiasm after the soldiers came into contact with the horrors of modern warfare?
8. Why did former French prime minister Joseph Caillaux spend two years in prison during World War I? What would governmental repression and propaganda say about the nature of World War I? Relate this conclusion to the concept of total war.
9. What were the fundamental mistakes of the negotiators at Paris who drew up the Treaty of Versailles? Were they doomed from the start? Was World War II inevitable?
10. Examine the concept of total war. How was World War I different from earlier wars? How important was the home front?
11. Examine the course of World War I in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Why did the war spread? How important were these centers of the war? How were these areas influenced by the war?
12. What were the major consequences of World War I? How was the world transformed by this bloody confrontation?
13. Examine the causes of the Russian Revolution. How was it tied to World War I? What were Lenin’s main ideas? How did he transform Russia and the world?