World War I: Key Events, Causes, and Outcomes for US History

Lusitania

British passage ship torpedoed by a German submarine in May 1915, killing 128 Americans

Sussex pledge

A promise made by Germany that it would sink no more merchant ships without warning in an effort to keep the U.S. out of the war

Policy of the United States through most of WWI

Neutrality

Election of 1916

Woodrow Wilson

Zimmerman telegram

A telegram intercepted by British intelligence in which the German ambassador in Mexico was asked to offer the Mexican government the recovery of territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in exchange for Mexico becoming an ally of Germany in a war with the U.S.

U.S. President who asked Congress to declare war on Germany

Woodrow Wilson

Year U.S. entered WWI

1917

Selective Service Act

1917 act that required all men 21-30 to register for the draft, allowing the government to call them, if needed, into military service

John J. Pershing

The commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I

Propaganda

Spreading of ideas about an institution or individual for the purpose of influencing opinion

End of fighting in WWI

The Germans signed an armistice on November 11, 1918

Armistice

An agreement to end fighting

Event that killed more people during 1918-1919 than WWI

The Spanish flu pandemic

Fourteen Points

President Wilson's peace plan that he believed would establish the conditions for a lasting peace in Europe if implemented

League of Nations

A general association of nations that would help preserve peace

Paris Peace Conference

A conference to establish the terms of peace after WWI

Big Four

United States, France, Great Britain, and Italy

Allied nation excluded from peace talks

Russia

Only one of Wilson's Fourteen Points to make it into the Treaty of Versailles

The League of Nations

Treaty of Versailles

Peace treaty between Germany and the Allied powers that officially ended WWI

Focus of the Treaty of Versailles

Punishing Germany

Nation not allowed to join the League of Nations

Germany

Reason U.S. rejected the Treaty of Versailles

It was unpopular because they did not want to get pulled into future wars

Leader of opposition to the Treaty of Versailles in the U.S.

Henry Cabot Lodge

Isolationism

Policy of staying out of the affairs of other countries

Harlem Hellfighters

The 369th Infantry Regiment, an African American unit that fought during WWI

Assignment of the Harlem Hellfighters during WWI

They were assigned to fight with the French army

Award given to the Harlem Hellfighters by the French government

The Croix de Guerre, France's highest award for bravery

Four main causes of WWI

Militarism, alliance, imperialism, nationalism

Short-term cause of WWI

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Militarism

Glorification of the military

Nations that made up the Triple Alliance

Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy

Two-front war

A war on both its eastern and western borders

Nations that made up the Triple Entente

Great Britain, France, and Russia

Nation that annexed Bosnia

Austria-Hungary

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who was assassinated on a state visit to Bosnia

Result of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination

Austria issued several ultimatums and declared war on Serbia

Central Powers

Germany, Austria-Hungary, & the Ottoman Empire

Allies

Great Britain, France, and Russia

Western Front

France & Belgium

Eastern Front

Russia

Effect of trench warfare

It led to outrageous casualties & stalemates because neither side could advance.

No man's land

The space between the German and Allied trenches

Use of poison gas in WWI

To end stalemates caused by trench warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare

German strategy to prevent merchant ships from reaching Great Britain by having U-boats torpedo and sink the merchant ships without warning