America and the America and the Great War Great War AP US History East High School Mr. Peterson Spring 2009
Mar 26, 2015
America and the Great WarAmerica and the Great War
AP US HistoryEast High School
Mr. PetersonSpring 2009
Collapse of European Peace
• Competing alliances
• Anglo-German rivalry
• Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Wilson’s Neutrality
• Remain “neutral in thought as well as deed.”-Wilson
• Impossible • Split sympathies• Reports of German atrocities• Economic ties to Britain• Submarine warfare
• Sinking of Lusitania (1916)• Sussex attacked• Germans relent
Preparedness vs. Pacifism
• Pressure from fellow progressives
• Ethnic pressures
• 1916 election• “What did we do? What did we do?...We didn’t
go to war!”• “He kept us out of war.”
A War for Democracy
• Wilson calls for “peace without victory”• Zimmermann Telegram (Feb. 1917)• Russian Revolution topples Czar (March 1917) • Germans torpedo 3 American ships
• War declared April 6, 1917• “a war to end all wars”• “a concert of free peoples…shall bring peace
and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.”
The American Expeditionary Force
• Selective Service Act• Led by John J. Pershing
• Trench warfare in France• Assist French in repelling German assaults
• Château-Thierry• Rheims
• Meuse-Argonne Offensive
• Germans surrender November 11, 1918• Armistice Day
New Technology of Warfare
• Machine guns• Higher-powered artillery• Tanks• Flame throwers• Chemical weapons
• Mustard gas• Gas masks required
• Motorized vehicles• Airplanes• Zeppelins • New battleships• Torpedoes
High Casualty Rates
• British Empire 1,000,000
• France 1,700,000
• Germany 2,000,000
• Austro-Hungarian 1,500,000
• Russia 1,700,000
• Italy 460,000
• United States 112,000
America and the Great WarAmerica and the Great War
AP US HistoryEast High School
Mr. PetersonSpring 2009