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Alliance System. Life of Soldiers. Technology. Timeline. Path to War. Multiple Choice. Nationalism. Treaty of Versailles. World War One. Question Sheet. Alliance Systems. Bismarck – Chancellor of German Empire - Creation of a unified Germany
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Alliance System Life of Soldiers Technology Timeline Path to War Multiple Choice Nationalism Treaty of Versailles World War One Question Sheet
Alliance Systems • Bismarck – Chancellor of German Empire • - Creation of a unified Germany • - Dual alliance with Austria-Hungary in 1879 • -Promised aid to one another in the event of a Russian attack, or if Russia aided a nation against either Germany or Austria-Hungary. Triple Alliance – Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary – 1881 - Promise to assist Italy if it was attacked by France, Italy was bound to aid Germany and Austria-Hungary if they were attacked by France. - Should any nation involved in the alliance find itself at war with two or more nations, the other two nations were obliged to assist in the primary nation’s defense. - Goal was to prevent Italy from declaring war against Austria-Hungary, whom they were involved with in a territorial battle.
Alliance System • Secret Franco-Italian Alliance – Italy promises neutrality in the event Germany attacks France. • Franco-Russian Alliance – 1892 – Should France or Russia be attacked by a member of the Triple Alliance, the other nation would provide military assistance. • British-Japanese Alliance – 1902 – Aimed at limiting German colonial gains in the East. • Britain emerges from isolation over fears of a possible German Empire. Military competition ensues between Germany and Britain which led to rapid militarization on both sides. Special focus on developing naval forces. • Entente Cordiale – 1904 – Britain and France • Offered closer diplomatic cooperation, not formally an alliance. • Triple Entente – 1907 – Russia joins the Entente Cordiale • Not a military binding alliance pact, offered a “moral obligation” for aid in the time of war. • British and French Naval Agreement – 1912 – British protection of French Coast from German Attack, French protection of Suez Canal. • Russia pledged to protect Serbia – connected to the concept of Pan-Slavism. • Britain pledged to protect Belgian neutrality.
Russian Nationalism • Russo-Japanese War - 1904-1905 • Russia declined the Japanese offer of mutual recognition of each other’s interests in Manchuria and Korea in 1903. • Japanese attack on Port Arthur, China. • Japanese land invasion of Korea and Manchuria in 1904. • Japanese destruction of Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima (May 27-28th 1905). • U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace agreement between Japan and Russia. • Material gains for Japan. • Russian defeat partly responsible for the attempted Russian Revolution of 1905. • Tsar Nicholas II determined to restore Russian prestige. • Beginning of Russian military conquest.
Balkan Nationalism • 1912 – Italy and Turkey go to war over Turkish African possessions. • Turkey lost, forced to hand over control of Libya, Rhodes, and the Dodecanese Islands. • 1912 – Balkans • Turkish war with Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro. Battle over control of Balkan territories. • European intervention ended the First Balkan War of 1912-1913. • Turkey lost control of Crete and all of its European possessions. • Second Balkan War – 1913 • Bulgaria attempted to gain control of Macedonia. • Romania took control of the Bulgarian capital Sofia. • Bulgaria lost control of Adrianople in Turkey. • Rise of nationalism in territories controlled by Turkey and Austria-Hungary. • Attempted to establish independence for their countries. Maintained Pan-Slavic ties to Russia. • Russia uses Pan-Slavism as a way to regain lost prestige as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand • The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was troubled by the turmoil in the Balkans. • Struggle to maintain cohesion between various ethnic groups in the area. • Archduke Franz Ferdinand – Heir to the throne of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, visited Sarajevo on June 28th 1914. • Assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Serbian nationalist society known as the Black Hand. • Considered the “Spark of World War One”. • Ferdinand accepted an invitation to visit the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, to inspect army maneuvers. • Bosnia and Herzegovina were provinces that had been under the control of Austria-Hungary since 1878. • Austria annexed the provinces in 1908, upsetting the West. • Serbian nationalists wanted Bosnia and Herzegovina to be part of a larger Serbian empire (Pan-Slavism), not part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. • The Black Hand was upset about Franz Ferdinand’s policy regarding the Slavs. Once he became the leader of the Austrian Hungarian empire, Ferdinand wanted to create “Trialism”. This would give the Slavs, Germans, and Magyars equal voices in government. This upset the nationalist group greatly, considering they wanted to create a separate empire.
Steps to War – Austria-Hungarian Response to Assassination • Austria-Hungary took three weeks to plan their response to the assassination. • Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. They blamed the Serbian government for allowing the Black Hand to carry out the assassination. • Austria-Hungary was also concerned about Russian involvement in the war. • As a result of their fears, Austria-Hungary sought assurances from her ally, Germany, that she would come to their aid if the Russians became involved. • Germany agreed, encouraging Austria-Hungary’s militaristic stance.
Path to War • Austria-Hungary – Upset with the Serbian response declared war on July 28, 1914. Exactly one month to the day of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. • Russia, bound by the alliance to Serbia, began mobilization of their military. • Germany, allied with Austria-Hungary, viewed the Russian mobilization as an act of war. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1st. • France, bound by treaty to Russia, found itself at war with Austria-Hungary and Germany. Germany invaded neutral Belgium. • Britain, allied with France, declared war on Germany on August 4th. Britain obligated to protect Belgium as a result of the 1839 Treaty of London. Britain, by extension, was now at war with Austria-Hungary. • Britain’s entry to the war meant that British colonial possessions, such as, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, were involved in the war. • Japan, honoring a military agreement with Britain, declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. As a result, Austria-Hungary declared war on Japan. • Italy, arguing that Germany and Austria-Hungary’s actions were considered “offensive”, remained out of the war. Italy joined the Allies in May of 1915. • The United States declared a policy of neutrality until 1917. • Forced to enter the war as a result of the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This was seen as a direct threat to U.S. commercial shipping. • U.S. enters the war on April 6 1917. • For a complete list of the nations involved in World War One, “The Great War”, click here.
Life of Soldiers • Indeed, the Great War - a phrase coined even before it had begun - was expected to be a relatively short affair and, as with most wars, one of great movement. The First World War was typified however by its lack of movement, the years of stalemate exemplified on the Western Front from autumn 1914 until spring 1918. • Not that there wasn't movement at all on the Western Front during 1914-18; the war began dramatically with sweeping advances by the Germans through Belgium and France en route for Paris. However stalemate - and trench warfare soon set in - and the expected war of movement wasn't restored until towards the close of the war, although the line rippled as successes were achieved at a local level.
Life of Soldiers – Trench Cycle • A man might expect in a year to spend some 70 days in the front line, with another 30 in nearby support trenches. A further 120 might be spent in reserve. Only 70 days might be spent at rest. The amount of leave varied, with perhaps two weeks being granted during the year.
Life of Soldiers – On Patrol • Patrols would often be sent out into No Mans Land. Some men would be tasked with repairing or adding barbed wire to the front line. Others however would go out to assigned listening posts, hoping to pick up valuable information from the enemy lines. • They could not afford to use their handguns while patrolling in No Man's Land, for fear of the machine gun fire it would inevitably attract, deadly to all members. • Men were relieved front-line duty at night-time too. Relieving units would wind their weary way through numerous lines of communications trenches, weighed down with equipment and trench stores (shovels, picks, iron).
Technology of World War One - Flamethrower • Flamethrower - It was put to initial wartime use against the French in the south-eastern sector of the Western Front from October 1914, although its use was sporadic and went largely unreported. • The first notable use of the Flammenwerfer came in a surprise attack launched by the Germans upon the British at Hooge in Flanders. Springing forward at 0315 on 30 July 1915 the Germans made effective use of the portable Flammenwerfer, with gas cylinders strapped to the back of the men responsible for using the instrument, a lit nozzle attached to each cylinder.
Technology of World War One – Machine Gun • The machine gun, which so came to dominate and even to personify the battlefields of World War One, was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914. Machine guns of all armies were largely of the heavy variety and decidedly ill-suited to portability for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in the 30kg-60kg range - often without their mountings, carriages and supplies.
Technology of World War One - Pistols • The pistol, originally designed as a cavalry weapon, was the staple weapon for a variety of personnel during World War One (and beyond). Traditionally issued to officers of all armies the pistol was also issued to military police, airmen and tank operators. • Reasons for Pistol Use • For men involved in the latter professions the pistol was essentially the only weapon that would serve under their unique environments: the cramped conditions of both the tank and aircraft dictated that the rifle - which was otherwise issued to virtually all regular soldiers - was impractical.
Technology of World War One - Tanks • No one individual was responsible for the development of the tank. A number of gradual technological developments brought the development of the tank as we know it closer until its eventual form was unveiled out of necessity by the British army. • The first combat tank was ready by January 1916 and was demonstrated to a high-powered audience. Convinced, Lloyd George - the Minister of Munitions - ordered production of the heavy Mark I model to begin. • Conditions for the tank crews were also far from ideal. The heat generated inside the tank was tremendous and fumes often nearly choked the men inside. Nevertheless the first tank operators proved their mettle by operating under what amounted to appalling condition. • By the time the war drew to a close the British, the first to use them, had produced some 2,636 tanks. The French produced rather more, 3,870. The Germans, never convinced of its merits, and despite their record for technological innovation, produced just 20.
Technology of World War One - Airplanes • When war broke out the number of aircraft on all sides and all fronts was very small. France, for example, had less than 140 aircraft at the start of the war. By the end of the war she fielded 4,500 aircraft, more than any other protagonist. While this may seem an impressive increase, it does not give a true indication of the amount of aircraft involved. During the war France produced no less than 68,000 aircraft. 52,000 of them were lost in battle, a horrendous loss rate of 77%. • In 1914 it was important that aircraft be easy to fly, as the amount of training that pilots received was minimal, to say the least. Louis Strange, an innovative pilot from the opening stages of the war, was an early graduate of the RFC (Royal Flying Corps) flight school. He began flying combat missions having completed only three and a half hours of actual flying time. For this reason aircraft were designed for stability. By the end of the war stability had given way to maneuverability. The famous Sopwith Camel was a difficult aircraft to fly, but supremely agile. • While the plane did not play the decisive roll that it was to play in later conflicts, the First World War proved their capabilities. It was during this period that the key tasks that aircraft could perform were discovered, experimented with, and refined: observation and reconnaissance, tactical and strategic bombing, ground attack, and naval warfare. With the growing importance and influence of aircraft came the need to control the air, and thus the fighter was born.
Timeline - 1914 Timeline - 1914
Treaty of Versailles • Begun in early 1919 and completed in April after several months of hard bargaining, it was presented to Germany for consideration on 7 May 1919. • The German government was given three weeks to accept the terms of the treaty (which it had not seen prior to delivery). Its initial response was a lengthy list of complaints, most of which were simply ignored. The treaty was perceived by many as too great a departure from U.S. President Wilson's Fourteen Points; and by the British as too harsh in its treatment of Germany. • Controversial even today, it is often argued that the punitive terms of the treaty supported the rise of the Nazis and the Third Reich in 1930s Germany, which in turn led to the outbreak of World War II. • The Versailles treaty deprived Germany of around 13.5% of its 1914 territory (some seven million people) and all of its overseas possessions. Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, and Belgium was enlarged in the east with the addition of the formerly German border areas of Eupen and Malmedy. • Among other territorial re-arrangements, an area of East Prussia was handed over to Lithuania, and the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia. • The German army was limited to a maximum of 100,000 men, and a ban placed upon the use of heavy artillery, gas, tanks and aircraft. The German navy was similarly restricted to shipping under 10,000 tons, with a ban on submarines.
Peace Negotiations Peace negotiations were greatly influenced by pressures from each leader’s constituency. Georges Clemenceau of France wanted the Germans to be punished, as did many British, while their prime minister, David Lloyd George, balanced those demands with a desire for a more moderate peace. All of the Western powers, including U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, were agreed in applying the principle of self-determination only to European peoples. Western overseas empires were not disturbed. The Peace of Paris laid down the terms of a peace that the Germans subsequently fought to overturn. The Germans were intentionally humiliated both in negotiations and in the terms of the peace. The Russians, Arabs, Chinese, and Vietnamese—in the person of Ho Chi Minh—were also treated with disdain. The U.S. Congress refused to approve the League of Nations charter.
Wilson’s 14 Points #1-6 • Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. • Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. • The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. • Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. • A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. • The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their goodwill, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
Wilson’s 14 Points – 7-14 • Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired. • All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. • A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. • The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. • Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into. • The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman [Turkish] Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule [i.e., Kurds, Arab peoples, Armenians and some Greeks] should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles [namely, the straits leading from the Black Sea approaches to international waters] should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees. • An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. • A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike
Arriving home from Europe in 1919 in the wake of the settlements agreed at the Paris Peace Conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson set about the seemingly impossible task of convincing the U.S. Congress, loaded as it was with his political enemies, to ratify both the treaty and to approve American participation in Wilson's own invention, the League of Nations. Wilson toured the country to canvass support in favor of both treaty and League, until illness forced him to abandon the tour and return home. He gave one of his final addresses (as President) in support of the League in Pueblo, CO., on 25 September 1919. League of Nations
1) The immediate cause for the outbreak of World War I was: (A) a naval race between Germany and Great Britain. (B) the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. (C) colonial disputes over Morocco. (D) conflicting alliances. (E) the Industrial Revolution. 2) The influence of technology on modern warfare is demonstrated by all of these developments in World War I EXCEPT: (A) submarines. (B) airplanes and aerial warfare. (C) the destructive power of artillery and machine guns. (D) mechanized warfare as demonstrated during the Blitzkrieg. (E) poisonous gases and barbed wire. Multiple Choice Questions
3) It was inevitable that conflict in Europe would become a world war because: (A) Great Britain and France had existing alliances with Japan and the United States. (B) the European combatants had colonies and forces around the world. (C) Germany attacked China and Japan. (D) Germany had alliances with Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. (E) the United States was heavily invested in German industry and protected its ally. 4) The biggest battles outside of Europe during World War I occurred in: (A) African colonies of Europe. (B) East Asia, where Japan and China fought each other. (C) the Middle East, where the Turks fought Britain, Russia, and France. (D) the Pacific, where Germany and Japan fought to control key islands. (E) Latin America, where Mexico invaded the United States. Multiple Choice Questions
5) The earliest result of World War I was the: (A) rise of the United States as a great power. (B) beginning of European decolonization. (C) rise of Japan to great power status. (D) Great Depression. (E) collapse of all European empires. 6) The principle of Woodrow Wilson that influenced future decolonization was: (A) immediate independence for all colonies. (B) evacuation of all occupied territories. (C) popular self-determination. (D) reparations for war damages. (E) the League of Nations. Multiple Choice Questions
