WWI Slides for Exam 2 United States History II (54877)WWI Slides for Exam 2

Triple Entente

The pre-WWI alliance consisting of Great Britain, France, and Russia.

Triple Alliance (Central Powers)

The pre-WWI alliance consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy (though Italy later switched sides).

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose assassination in June 1914 by a Serbian nationalist triggered the start of WWI.

Lusitania (1915)

A British passenger liner sunk by a German U-boat, killing 128 Americans; it turned American public opinion heavily against Germany.

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare

Germany's naval strategy of sinking any ship (including military, merchant, or passenger) without warning; its resumption in 1917 forced the U.S. into the war.

Zimmermann Telegram (1917)

A secret German message intercepted by Britain that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the U.S. entered the war, promising Mexico its lost territory back.

Selective Service Act (1917)

The federal law that authorized the first military draft since the Civil War to build up the American Expeditionary Forces.

War Industries Board (WIB)

A federal agency created to coordinate industrial production, set prices, and manage resources to supply the U.S. military.

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

The government propaganda agency headed by George Creel that used posters, movies, and "Four-Minute Men" to sell the war to the American public.

Espionage Act (1917) & Sedition Act (1918)

Laws that criminalized spying, interfering with the draft, or speaking out against the government or war effort, severely limiting free speech.

Schenck v. United States (1919)

A Supreme Court case that upheld the Sedition Act, ruling that free speech could be restricted if it posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.

The Great Migration

The massive movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans out of the rural South to northern cities to escape Jim Crow and take factory jobs during the war.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's blueprint for a peaceful postwar world, which advocated for open diplomacy, free trade, and national self-determination.

League of Nations

An international peacekeeping organization proposed in Wilson's Fourteen Points; the U.S. Senate ultimately refused to join it due to fears it would drag the U.S. into foreign conflicts.

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

The peace treaty that ended WWI, which severely punished Germany with massive reparations and war guilt, setting the stage for WWII.

Henry Cabot Lodge

A powerful Republican Senator who led the "Reservationists" in successfully blocking the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and entry into the League of Nations.