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Peace and the Treaty of Versailles

• End of the War:

o March of 1918:

• Germans launch a massive offensive that pushed the Allies back 40 miles by July.

• Exhausted Germans; Allies launch a counteroffensive pushing the Germans all the way back.

• September 1918: German Generals told the Kaiser the war could not be won.

• Kaiser William stepped down from power.

• Austrian-Hapsburg empire splintered into different nations in Autumn of 1918.

• New German government sought an armistice which was singed on November 11, 1918:

• The Great War was over.

o Treaty of Versailles:

• Germans were asked to come sign the Treaty of Versailles in Versailles Palace outside of Paris after the Big Three and the Allies were finished making it.

• Terms Horrified Germans:

• Forced Germany to accept full blame for the war.

• Imposed Huge reparations: Over $30 billion!!!

• Severely limited the size of the German military.

• Returned Alsace and Lorraine to France.

• Removed Hundreds of square miles to eastern and western Germany.

• Stripped Germany of its overseas colonies.

• Germans had no choice but to sign it.

o Resentment they felt would lead directly to World War II

• Paris Peace Conference

o Big Three: Dominant Forces in the Peace Talks.

• President Wilson: United States: Most Renown

• Believed in the Fourteen Points: list of points resolving this and future wars.

• End to secret treaties

• Freedom of the Seas

• Free Trade

• Large-Scale reduction of Arms

• Self-Determination (Especially in Eastern Europe) right of people to choose their own government.

• Create a “general association of nations” to keep peace in the future.

• David Lloyd George: Great Britain

• Demanded the harsh treatment of Germany

• Georges Clemenceau: France

• Strong Anti-German: Wanted to ensure they could never again regain power.

• Other Demands:

• Italy wanted tier land that had been ruled by Austria-Hungary back: secret agreement and went against Fourteen Points

• Nations once ruled by Austria-Hungary all wanted their boundaries recognized but many overlapped.

• President Wilson compromised on Fourteen Points but held firm on League of Nations.

o Based on collective security: a system in which a group of nations acts as one to preserve the peace of all.

o Wilson’s hope of World Peace rested in the League of Nations.

Russian Revolution

1917: Russia was hit especially hard.

• People had zero confidence in the government.

• March 1917: Revolution strikes and the Russian monarchy is destroyed.

• Vladimir Lenin comes to power promising to pull Russia from the war.

1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Agreement with Germany declaring they were not involved in WWI.

o Germany could now fully concentrate on the Western Front and not worry about an Eastern Front

o Spring of 1918: Central Powers thought they would be victorious when……………………

• United States enters the war on the side of the Allies!

War Nears End

Trench Warfare

• Western Front was a vast system of trenches dug by each side. Trenches stretched from Swiss Frontier to the English Channel.

o Underground network linked bunkers, communication trenches, and gun emplacements.

o Unbearable hot in the summer; freezing in the winter.

o Full of rats and lice.

• No man’s land was the land occupying the area between warring trenches.

o No houses, no sign of life.

o Each solider knew one day when his commander said “go over the top”

• They would have to leaves their trenches and enter no man’s land with nothing but their helmet and rifle and try to overrun the enemy trench.

o Counterattack would follow and if you survived you did this over and over again.

• 1916: both sides try to break the stalemate.

o German forces tried to overrun the French at Verdun.

• French held firm but in 11 month struggle half a million casualties on both sides.

o Allied offensive at Somme River was worse.

• 60,000 British were killed or wounded in one day.

• 5 month battle

• 1 million dead

• No one won!

“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.”

Siegfried Sassoon, “Suicide in the Trenches”

• Total War

o 3 years into the war it became a Total War: the channeling of a nation’s entire resources into a war effort.”

o Economics

• All Nations involved set up systems to recruit, arm, supply, and transport armies in the millions.

• All nations except for Britain imposed a draft.

• Germany set up a system of forced civilian labor as well.

• Governments:

• Raised Taxes

• Borrowed huge sums of money

• Rationed food and other products

• Set other economic controls:

o Setting prices

o Forbidding Strikes

o Censorship

• Total War involved controlling public opinion

• Special Boards censored the press

• Keep casualty figures and discouraging news from people

• Governments censored literature, motion pictures and art.

• Propaganda was rampant on both sides:

• Always depicted the enemy as barbaric or monstrous.

o Women and the War

• Women took over jobs men once held

• Kept economies and societies going.

• Many worked in war industries.

• Others joined branches of armed services.

• Nurses were often in just as much danger as the men.

• Worked round the clock close to the front line.

• War work gave women confidence, which eventually will lead to women’s suffrage.

• Collapsing Morale

o 1917: Both sides are not in good spirits.

o Germany was sending 15 year-olds to front line!

• GUYS THAT COULD BE YOU!!!!

o Britain was near bankrupt.

o People just wanted peace at this point!

Conflict Widens

• Alliances turned what could have been a brief conflict into a full- blown World War.

• In Germany:

o Kaiser William II was shocked to hear of the assassination and urged Francis Joseph to take a firm stance.

o Gave Austria a “Blank check” and full support.

• In Russia:

o Serbia asked Russia for help.

o Czar Nicholas telegraphed Kaiser William II asking him to urge Austria to go easy on Serbia.

o Germany refused= Russia began to mobilize for war.

o Germany declared war on Russia.

o Russia asked France for help.

• In France:

o French nationalists saw this as a chance for revenge against Germans.

o France offered a “Blank Check” and Full support to Russia.

o Germany demanded that France stay out of it.

o France refused.

o Germany declared war on France

Schlieffen Plan

• Italy and Britain = Not involved yet.

• Italy declared Neutrality: policy of supporting neither side.

• Years earlier: General Alfred von Schlieffen developed a plan of attack against France.

o Designed to avoid a two front war; France in the west, Russia in the east.

o Germany first had to defeat France than deal with Russia. Felt Russia would be slow to mobilize.

• Required German armies to march through Belgium than swing south behind French lines.

• Belgium had singed a treaty of Neutrality.

o August 3, Germany invaded Belgium.

• Britain was outraged that Germany ignored Belgium’s neutrality.

o Britain declared war on Germany.

Reasons for War

• Austria-Hungary: Wanted to Punish Serbia for Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination.

• Germany: Felt is must side with ally, Austria-Hungary.

• Russia: Saw Austria ultimatum as an effort to oppress Slavic people.

• France: If did not support Russia, might have to fight Germany alone.

• Britain: Committed to protect Belgium and feared the German force in France.

• People were excited to show their patriotism and defend their nations at first.

• Young men rushed to enlist; Women and elders cheered them on.

• Seemed like an adventure: Had no idea what was to come.

War Expands Further

“The Great War” was the biggest war in history up to this point.

• French: 8.5 million men

• British: 9 million

• Russia: 12 million

• Germans: 11 million

1 out of 4 did not come back; those who came back were never the same.

People soon lost their enthusiasm and sense of adventure.

Quickly realized this was a war like no one had ever seen.

The Western Front

• German forces enter Belgium moving quickly toward Paris.

• Germans quickly break away from Schlieffen Plan after they realize that Russians were mobilizing a lot quicker.

o Russian forces won several victories in Prussia; Germans moved troops to the east; weakened their forces in the west.

• September 1914: Battle of the Marne:

o French and British troops meet German forces at the Marne River in France.

o Pushed back the German offensive and destroyed Germany’s hopes of a quick victory in the west.

• Both sides dug trenches on the West Front. Would remain a stalemate for four years.

United States Enters War

The Powder Keg of Europe Explodes

Main Player: Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary vs Gavrilo Princip

Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia

Date: June, 1914

Conflict:

• Bosnia is under Austria-Hungary rule but the home of many Serbs and Slavs.

o Serbian nationalists were livid about the visit, which fell on the day of a special Serbian holiday.

• Members of Unity or Death or Black Hand, Serbian terrorist groups, swore to take action.

• Archduke ignored warnings.

• Archduke Ferdinand and wife Sophie rode through Sarajevo in an open car.

• Black Hand conspirators were stationed along the route.

o One threw a bomb and missed Ferdinand.

• Later Archduke Ferdinand asked to visit the officer wounded by the bomb.

o As the car began to leave for the hospital Gavrilo Princip, Black Hand member, jumped forwards and shot twice.

o Archduke Ferdinand and Sophie were dead.

o Francis Joseph, (Remember Him????) was angry about his nephew’s death.

• Sent Serbia an ultimatum: End all anti-Austrian agitation and punish any Serbian involved n assassination plot or WAR!!!

o Serbia refused to agree to all demands.

July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia.

• Reasons:

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare:

  • U-boats had been attacking merchant and passenger ships carrying Americans.
  • Often carrying supplies to the Allies but did not justify killing citizens of a neutral nation.
  • May 1915: German submarine torpedoed British liner the Lusitania
  • 128 of the 1200 killed were Americans.
  • President Wilson threatened to cut off any relations with Germany and they agreed to restrict its submarine campaign.
  • Before attacking they would surface and give warning so that neutral passengers could escape.
  • December 1916: Germany was just kidding! Continued unrestricted submarine warfare.

Reasons Continued:

o Cultural Ties:

• Most Americans felt more allegiance to the Allies.

o Zimmerman Note:

• Early 1917:

• British intercepted a note from German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman to his ambassador in Mexico.

• If Mexico supported Germany, Germany would give it back its land lost to US once US was defeated.

• Britain showed note to America and Anti-German sentiment rose.

• Declaring War:

o April 1917: President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

o War “to make the world safe for democracy.”

o 1918: 2 million American troops were fighting on the Western Front.

o Gave the Allies the financial support, troop support, and overall morale boost that they needed.

Global Conflict

• Eastern Front had more casualties and just as indecisive as Western Front.

• Russia struggled as the least industrialized of the great nations.

o Sometimes lacked rifles.

o Disastrous defeat at Tannenberg.

• Bulgaria joined the Central Powers

• Italy joined the Allied Powers.

• Italians had a disastrous defeat at Caporetto.

• Soon areas of Asia, Middle East, and Africa were all involved in the war.

• Ottoman Empire joined Central Powers.

• Truly a World War.

Legacy of War

o Dissatisfaction over Treaties

• Self-Determination in Eastern Europe:

• Baltic states emerge.

o Latvia

o Lithuania

o Estonia

• Poland Gained independence after 100 years.

• Yugoslavia was formed in the south; dominated by Serbia.

• Austria-Hungary is broken up.

o Czechoslovakia

o Austria

o Hungary

• Mandate System:

• Treaty did not call for an end to imperialism.

• Treaties create system a system of mandates; territories administered by foreign powers.

• Britain and France gained mandates over German territory in Africa and Ottoman Lands in Middle East.

• Colonized people who had fought in war felt betrayed.

• Unfulfilled Goals and Global Peace:

• Italy was angry because they did not gain all land back.

• Japan was mad because they did not get control over land in China.

• Russia was mad Poland was independent.

• One Good Thing: People were excited about League of Nations.

o Over 40 nations joined.

o Promised to take common action, economic or military, against any aggressor state.

• Senate did not allow United States to joined.

o Greatly weakened the League.

o Powerless to Protect war.

• Cost of War:

o 8.5 million dead.

o 17 million wounded; many handicapped for life.

o 1918: pandemic of influenza spread around the world.

• Killed 20 million.

• Europe is left in a state of utter devastation and turmoil.

Warning: This is Live footage of War!

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