MWH 3.D

Unit III Part D: WWI

The Eastern Front

Trench Warfare

o Unlike the Western Front, the Eastern Front was a war

of mobility.

• The Russians had quickly moved into east Germany, but were defeated in two battles halting their progress.

o Austria fared worse than their allies, losing battles to

the Russians and Serbs.

• In May of 1915 Italy attacked Austria, breaking their triple alliance with them and Germany, and effectively joining Great Britain, France, and Russia.

o Germany came to the rescue however, and a joint

German-Austrian army eliminated Serbia from the war and pushed Russia back, killing, capturing, or wounding 2.1 million.

o In the west, the trenches dug in 1914 had, by 1916,

become elaborate systems of defense.

• The Germans and French each had hundreds of miles of trenches protected by barbed wire 5 feet high and 30 feet wide.
• Concrete machine gun barriers supported by heavy artillery protected the trenches.

o Trench Warfare baffled military leaders who were

used to movement and maneuver, the war became one of attrition.

• War of Attrition: War based on wearing down the other side with constant attacks and heavy losses.
• In Verdun, France, 700,000 men lost their over just a few miles of land.

Assassination in Sarajevo

The Western Front

Air Warfare

o The Schlieffen Plan: German plan to

circle behind Pairs, trapping the French army and allowing them to focus on the fight in the east.

o The Germans never made it to Paris

however, and the war in the Western Front became bogged down with Trench Warfare, with neither side making any ground.

o On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Francis

Ferdinand visited the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia.

o Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Serbian

Nationalist group the Black Hand, was the one who succeed in the assassination of the Archduke and his Wife Sophia.

o Emperor William II of Germany gave Austria a

“Blank Check”

• Promising support if Russia attacks Austria to defend Serbia.

o By 1915 planes had entered the battlefield.

• Planes were used as recon or in conjunction with artillery, they would spot targets on the ground and report to the guns, they also would relay hits, misses, and needed adjustments.
• Early air fights were simply pilots fired at each other with handheld pistols, eventually though, machine guns were added to the planes.

Mobilization

o On July 28th, Austria-Hungry declared war on Serbia.

o By July 29th, Russia fully mobilized.

• The process of assembling troops and supplies, considered an act of war.

o August 1st, Germany declares war on Russia.

o August 3rd, Because of the French-Russian alliance,

Germany declares war on France.

• Belgium says that Germany cannot travel through it to get to the French Border.

o August 4th, Germany invades Belgium to get to

France, Great Britain declares war on Germany to defend Belgium.