Traditions and Encounters, AP Edition (Bentley), 5th Edition Chapter 33: The Great War: The World in Upheaval Chapter Outline - The drift toward war
- Nationalist aspirations
- Nationalism spread by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars
- Self-determination suggested that each ethnic group had a right to a sovereign state
- Concept was ignored or opposed by dynastic powers
- Considerable nationalistic tensions in Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian empires
- Slavic nationalism: stressed kinship of all Slavic peoples
- Ottoman empire shrank as first Greece, then others, gained independence
- Serbs of Austria-Hungary sought unification with independent Serbia
- Russians promoted Pan-Slavism in Austria-Hungarian empire
- Germany backed Austria-Hungary to fight ethnic nationalism
- National rivalries
- The naval race between Germany and Britain increased tensions
- Germany's rapid industrialization threatened British economic predominance
- Both states built huge iron battleships, called dreadnoughts
- Colonial disputes of the late nineteenth century
- Germany unified in 1871; came late to the colonial race
- German resentment and antagonism toward both France and Britain
- France and Germany nearly fought over Morocco in 1905
- Balkan wars (1912-13) further strained European diplomatic relations
- Public opinion supported national rivalries
- Attitudes of aggressive patriotism among European citizens
- Leaders under pressure to be aggressive, to take risks
- Understandings and alliances
- Rival systems of alliance obligated allies to come to one another's defense
- The Central Powers
- Germany and Austria-Hungary formed a Dual Alliance 1879
- In fear of France, Italy joined the Dual Alliance in 1882, thus, the Triple Alliance
- Ottoman empire loosely affiliated with Germany
- The Allies
- Britain, France, and Russia formed the Triple Entente, or the Allies
- Shifting series of treaties ended with a military pact, 1914
- War plans: each power poised and prepared for war
- Military leaders devised inflexible military plans and timetables
- France's Plan XVII focused on offensive maneuvers and attacks
- Germany's Schlieffen plan: swift attack on France, then defensive against Russia
- Global war
- The guns of August: triggered a chain reaction
- June 1914, Austrian Archduke assassinated by Serbian nationalist
- Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, July 28
- Russia mobilized troops to defend its Serbian ally against the Central Powers
- Germany: July 31, sent ultimatums to Russia and France, which were ignored
- Germany declared war on Russia and France, invaded Belgium to reach France
- August 4: to protect Belgium's neutrality, Britain declared war on Germany
- Mutual butchery
- War was greeted with enthusiasm on all sides; was expected to be brief
- The western front
- German invasion of France halted along the river Marne for three years
- Trenches on the western front ran from the English Channel to Switzerland
- Italy entered war with Allies, maintained defensive line against Austria-Hungary
- Stalemate and new weapons
- New technologies favored defensive tactics over offensive tactics
(a) Poisonous gas: introduced by Germans, used by both sides (b) Eight hundred thousand casualties from mustard gas - Armored tanks used to break down trenches toward end of the war
- Airplanes used mainly for reconnaissance
- Submarines used especially by Germans against Allied shipping
- No-man's-land littered with dead, the grim reality of trench warfare
- On the eastern front, battle lines more fluid
- Austrian-German forces overran Serbia, Albania, and Romania
- Russia invaded Prussia 1915, but was soon driven out
- Russians' counterattacks in 1916-1917 collapsed in a sea of casualties
- Bloodletting: long, costly battles
- At Verdun: French "victory" with 315,000 dead, defeated Germans lost 280,000
- At the Somme, Britain and Germany saw losses of 420,000 each
- New rules of engagement
- Civilians became targets of enemy military operations
- Air raids against civilians; naval blockades common
- Total war: the home front
- On the home front: the economy mobilized to the war effort
- Governments militarized civilian war production
- Imposed wage and price controls
- Extended military draft in Germany from ages sixteen to sixty
- Women served the war by entering the workforce
- Took over jobs vacated by soldiers
- Did hazardous work with explosives, shells, TNT
- A liberating experience, especially for middle- and upper-class women
- Women granted the vote in western nations after the war
- Propaganda campaigns to maintain national support for the war
- Included censorship and restrictions on civil liberties
- Criticism of the war regarded as treasonous
- Propaganda designed to dehumanize the enemy
- Conflict in east Asia and the Pacific
- Expansion of the war beyond Europe
- European animosities extended to the colonies
- British and French forces recruited colonials into their armies
- Eventually, Japan, United States, Ottoman empire entered the war
- Japan entered war with the Allies, 1814
- Seized German-leased territory in China
- New Zealand and Australia likewise seized German-held lands in the Pacific
- The Twenty-One Demands
- Japan advanced its imperial interests in China
- The Twenty-One Demands were designed to reduce China to Japanese protectorate
- Britain intervened, prevented total capitulation of China to Japan
- Battles in Africa and southwest Asia
- The war in sub-Saharan Africa
- Allies targeted the four German colonies in Africa
- Togoland fell quickly, but not the others
- Many Allied soldiers and workers died from tropical diseases
- Battle of Gallipoli, 1915, in Ottoman Turkey
- British decided to strike at the weakest Central Power, the Ottomans
- Battle of Gallipoli a disaster, with 250,000 casualties on each side
- Weakened ties of loyalty between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain
- The Ottoman empire lost ground after Gallipoli
- Lost Caucasus to Russians
- Successful Arab revolt aided by British
- The end of the war
- Revolution in Russia
- February Revolution of 1917: uprising against shortages, mounting deaths in the war
- Facing mutinies, Nicholas II abdicated throne
- Provisional government established
- Struggle for power between provisional government and Petrograd soviet
- New government passed many liberal reforms
- Did not undertake land reform, did not withdraw from the war
- V. I. Lenin (1870-1924) stepped into unstable situation
- A revolutionary Marxist, exiled in Switzerland
- Saw importance of a well-organized, disciplined party for revolution
- German authorities delivered Lenin to Russia, 1917, to take Russia out of war
- Headed radical Bolshevik Party: demanded power to soviets, withdrawal from war
- The October Revolution
- Minority Bolsheviks gained control of Petrograd soviet
- Bolsheviks' slogan "Peace, Land, and Bread" appealed to workers and peasants
- Armed force seized power from provisional government in name of all soviets
- Russia withdrew from war, made a separate peace with Germany, lost one-third of Ukraine
- U.S. intervention and collapse of the Central Powers
- 1914-1916, United States under President Woodrow Wilson officially neutral
- American public opposed participation in a European war
- U.S. companies sold supplies, gave loans to Allies
- By 1917, Allied ability to repay loans depended on Allied victory
- The submarine warfare helped sway American public opinion
- German blockade sank merchant ships, intended to strangle Britain
- 1915, Germans sank Lusitania, a British passenger liner, killing 1,198 passengers
- United Stattes declared war on Germany, 6 April 1917
- Collapsing fronts after years of bloodletting
- April 1916, Irish nationalists attempted to overthrow British rule
- Central Powers: shortages, food riots, mutinies
- 1917, mutiny of fifty thousand French soldiers
- Spring 1918, massive Germany offensive on western front failed
- With fresh American troops, Allies broke the front and pushed the Germans back
- Central Powers collapsed, one after another; accepted armistices November 1918
- The Paris Peace Conference, 1919
- In the end, the Great War killed fifteen million people, wounded twenty million
- The Paris settlement was dominated by heads of Britain, France, and United States
- Twenty-seven nations with conflicting aims participated
- Leaders of Central Powers and Soviet Union not included
- Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: proposal for a just and lasting peace
- Included free trade, arms treaties, rights for colonials, an association of nations
- Most of the program rejected by Allies; Central Powers felt betrayed
- The Peace Treaties, 1919
- French insisted on destroying German military
- Central Powers forced to accept war guilt and pay reparations for cost of war
- Austria and Hungary were separated and reduced; the new states were added to eastern Europe
- Overall, the peace settlement was a failure; left a bitter legacy
- Ataturk: Mustafa Kemal, father of modern Turkey
- 1923, drove out occupying Allied forces, proclaimed Republic of Turkey
- Implemented reforms: emancipation of women, western dress, European law
- Secular rule replaced Muslim authorities
- Constitutional democracy, although Ataturk ruled as virtual dictator until 1938
- The League of Nations created to maintain world peace
- Forty-two members, twenty-six of them outside Europe
- The league had no power to enforce its decisions
- Collective security depended on all major powers, but United States never joined
- Self-determination for ethnic nationalities: urged by Wilson at Paris Conference
- Basis for redrawing map of eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia
- Difficult to draw lines: German minorities left in Poland and Czechoslovakia
- Yugoslavia: land of southern Slaves, uneasy mix of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes
- The mandate system
- United States opposed direct colonization; Allies proposed system of trusteeships
- Colonies of Central Powers divided into three classes of mandates
- Allies divided up Germany's African colonies, Ottoman territories in southwest Asia
- Arabs outraged at betrayal by their British allies
- Challenges to European preeminence
- Great War weakened Europe, set the stage for decolonization after World War II
- Economic crises: inflation, debt, loss of overseas investments, foreign markets
- Economic relationship between Europe and United States reversed; United States now creditor
- Loss of prestige overseas weakened European grip on colonies
- Revolutionary ideas
- The war helped spread concept of self-determination
- Nationalist movements also sought inspiration from the Soviet Union
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