World War I
Jan 02, 2016
Failure of the Schlieffen Plan
• Failure of French to advance on left flank
• Belgian resistance
• Russian advances on the Eastern front
• British support for French
The Western Front• German advance
stopped at the Marne
• Trench warfare
• Stalemate
• War of attrition
The Western Front (cont.)
• Examples:– Battle of Verdun
– Battle of the Somme
• Millions dead, with little territorial gain
The Eastern Front• Russia made initial gains
• Germans countered at Tannenberg & Masurian Lakes
• Russians pushed back; but Germans main focus was in the West
Alliances• The Central Powers– Austria-Hungary
– Germany
– Turkey
– Bulgaria
• The Allies– Serbia
– Russia
– France
– Britain
– Japan
– Italy
The Middle East
• The Allies tried to take control of the Dardanelles & Bosporus
• The British failed to capture Gallipoli
The Role of Technology• Advanced weapons greatly
increased casualties & horrors of war
• Strategies often did not account for new technologies
– Machine Guns– Artillery– Poison gas– U-boats– Airplanes– Barbed wire– Tanks
Appeals to Nationalism
• Both sides tried to incite nationalist uprisings within territories of their enemies– E.g. Irish, Flemings, Poles,
Czechs, Ukrainians
• Most successful in inciting Arabs against the Turks
The War at Sea• British imposed a blockade and
seized neutral ships
• Germans countered with unrestricted submarine warfare
• May 1915, Lusitania sunk; Germany stopped unrestricted sub warfare due to US objections
• April 1916- Battle of Jutland; only naval battle of the war; Germans failed to break the blockade
Russia’s Exit• Russia was losing
• 1917 Russian Revolution
• 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; Russia out of the war
US Entry• British blockade caused
hardship for Germany
• Resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare
• The Zimmerman Telegram
• April 1917 US declares war
The Home Front• “Total War”
• Extensive use of propaganda• Governments took greater control of
economies– rationing– Cooperation with private sector and
with labor unions
• Lower classes benefited
• Women’s roles changed
The End of the War• March 1918- Germany launched the “Spring Offensive” but was unsuccessful
• US troops had begun arriving
• By Sept.1918, Gen. Ludendorff realized that defeat was inevitable; gave power to the Reichstag led by the Social Democrats
• Oct. 1918- Rebellions in Austria-Hungary
• Oct-Nov. 1918- desertions & mutinies in German military; “Workers & Soldiers Councils” take over many local governments
• Nov. 9, 1918- Kaiser William II abdicated
• Nov. 11, 1918- Armistice signed