World War I: The Great War

1914-1918 and its repercussions

Why was World War I significant?• World War I (1914-1918):

– began in Europe, but involved countries as far away as the United States and Japan.

– was one of the bloodiest and most catastrophic wars in history, since it was the first war to use modern technology.

– was also the first total war-- countries put all of their resources into the war effort, and the war affected civilians and soldiers alike.

• Furthermore World War I led almost directly to World War II and set the stage for many other important events in the twentieth century.

Who were the combatants in World War I?

• The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire

• The Allied Powers: Britain, France, Russia and the United States

What specific events led to the outbreak of war in 1914?

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Austria: The killing of the Austrian heir and his wife by a young Serbian nationalist Gabriel Princips allowed the long-awaited war to begin.

What were the MAIN causes of World War I?

• Militarism: A desire to use new modern weapons, and to build your military’s power.

• Alliances: A desire to back countries who were your friends.

• Imperialism: A desire to take over other lands and make them your empire.

• Nationalism: A desire to show the superiority of your nation.

What was the attitude toward World War I in 1914?

• Most Europeans, after decades of tension, were eager for war to begin in 1914.

• Both the Triple Entente and the Central Powers expected war to be quick and rewards to be great.

Propaganda promoted World War I

• Much of public opinion about the war came from propaganda.

• The first World War harnessed modern technologies as part of the war machine, ranging from weapons to modern advertising.

• Propaganda images were intended to promote nationalism and sell the war to citizenry.

II. The War Itself, 1914-1918

Describe the military strategies used in World War I, 1914-1917

• The war in the West: The Schlieffen Plan was Germany’s plan to defeat France quickly before Russia mobilized, to avoid a two-front war. – Unfortunately for Germany, the

plan failed. Similarly, France under-estimated German strength at the border and was unable to take the offensive.

– Thus war was not quick or easy.

Then the reality hit: Modern warfare• Instead the war on the Western Front

became a war of attrition, not movement. German and French forces dug trenches into their border.

• New mechanized weapons technology was also introduced.

• Coupled with new mechanized weapons, trench warfare cost hundreds of thousands of lives for advances of a few hundred yards. For example in the Battle of the Somme, 57,000 British troops died and 19,000 were injured.

• What were the new weapons? (over)

New weapons technologies changed warfare’s nature, speed and efficiency:

• Guns and bombs (from pistols to major artillery) with better accuracy and range of fire, enabled armies to fire upon each other across long distances and obstructed views. Machine guns let single soldiers effectively take on multiple opponents.

• Motorized vehicles, such as trucks, cars and trains, improved troops and supplies’ deployment speed and distance.

• Tanks, airplanes and submarines changed how wars were fought. Machine guns and mustard gas were used in trenches. Eventually the tank was introduced by the British and beat the machine gun.

• Chemical warfare like mustard gas and other poison gases was used on a large scale for the first time, with results so gruesome that most countries vowed never to use such weapons again.

Excerpts from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front

The] tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armoured they come rolling on in long lines, more than anything else embody for us the horror of war.

We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and the wounded—we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenades matches.

Shells, gas clouds, and the flotillas of tanks—shattering, corroding, death.Dysentery, influenza , typhus—scalding, choking, death.Trenches, hospitals, the common grave—there are no other possibilities.

Excerpts from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front

I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slaying one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all the men of my age, here and over there, throughout the world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing—it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?

Aftermath of the Battle of Verdun

Describe the end of World War I.

• In 1917, the Allies tried and failed to break through across German lines. Deadlock continued.

• In March 1918, Germany decided to take one last offensive. There were no more reserves, and troops were exhausted.

• The Allies waged a counteroffensive including newly deployed American troops, which were irresistible. The German commander asked for peace on the basis of American President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points- “Peace without victors or vanquished.”

• World War I ended.

III. The Aftermath, 1918-1939

What were the Great War’s consequences?• This final section will detail how WWI had many short and

long term effects on Europe and the rest of the world.– Despite efforts to create lasting peace after WWI, the Versailles

Peace Treaty failed. – The League of Nations was created to prevent future wars.

However, it was too weak to succeed. – Germany was blamed for WWI and forced to accept harsh peace

terms. Lasting bitterness and other problems followed.– Europe had suffered economic devastation and civilian casualties,

its youth was disillusioned and it had a “Lost Generation” of men.

– The Second Coming?: The rise of extremism and World War II

Explain the Armistice and Peace Treaty ending World War I and their effects.

• WWI’s brutality briefly inspired determination among nations to use diplomacy to resolve conflicts in the future--i.e., the League of Nations.

• The American president, Woodrow Wilson, was an intellectual who a plan to make WWI the “war to end all wars.” Wilson’s Fourteen Points promised:– Democracy– national self-determination– open diplomacy rather than alliances– freedom of the seas – disarmament and

– the establishment of a League of Nations to prevent future wars.

Explain the Armistice and Peace Treaty ending World War I and their effects.

• The actual armistice failed to achieve Wilson’s vision of peace and prosperity:– No demilitarization. – “Open covenants openly arrived at” and “a peace

without victors” gave way to closed sessions that excluded Russia and Germany– building tensions.

– Imperialism remained an unresolved problem.– Countries were not given national self-

determination. – The League of Nations was created to prevent future

wars, but was weak since it lacked troops and excluded Russia and Germany.

WWI also had huge social and economic costs.• 8-9 million

soldiers died in battle.

• 20% of men age 20 to 44 were dead by 1918

What were WWI’s social and economic costs?• 13 million civilians

died, from genocide.• Famine and diseases

like the “Spanish Influenza” and typhus raised the death toll by another 20 million.

• In total, the loss of life worldwide surpassed 40 million.

Conclusion:• Fought as the “Great War” and “The War to End All

Wars,” Europeans lost control of WWI. • It opened Pandora’s box of modern weaponry, and

destroyed more lives and property than any war in history up to that point.

• Despite efforts to solve the problems that had led to the war, problems castrated the League of Nations and made the Peace Treaty a failure.

• Thus by the 1930s, militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism would flare up again and lead to second, even more destructive world war.

W.B. Yeats: The Second Coming (1921)