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The Triple Alliance aka the Central Powers grew out of the
close relationship that developed between the leaders of Germany and Austria-Hungary
The Dual Alliance
a defensive pact formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary that ensured reciprocal protection from a Russian attack and neutrality in case of an attack from any other power
The Dual Alliance was transformed into the Triple Alliance when
Italy joined for fear of France
The Triple Entente
a combination of nations commonly referred to as the Allies (Russia, France, and Britain)
German war plans played a crucial role in
the events leading to the Great War
Germany’s fear of encirclement by France and Russia encouraged
its military planners to devise a strategy that would avoid a war on two fronts
The Schlieffen Plan was developed by General Count Alfred von Schlieffen and called for
a swift knockout of France, followed by defensive action against Russia
Even in democratic societies, governments assumed dictatorial control to
marshal the human and material resources required for continuous war
Imperial ties drew millions of Asians, Africans, and residents of the British dominions into the war to serve as
soldiers and laborers
The shots fired from this man set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity that escalated into war
Gavrilo Princip
On July 23 The Austrians issued an ultimatum to the
government of Serbia
When the Serbian government rejected one of the terms,
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia
The sequence of events that largely determined by two factors
complex mobilization plans and the grinding logic of the alliance system
Military planners were convinced that the timing of these two things were crucial to the successful conduct of war
mobilization orders and adherence to precise timetables
Nicholas II mobilized troops to defend Serbia from Austria after his military experts had convinced him that
a partial mobilization might invite defeat should the Germans enter the war on the side of Austria
The German government declared war on
Russia and France
When Belgium was invaded, the British government demanded that Belgian neutrality be respected; When Germany refused,
the British immediately declared war
In 1917, Italy left the Triple Alliance to enter the war on the side of the
allies
After Italy was defeated at Caporetto, Italian forces maintained
a defensive line only with the help of the French and British
No man’s land
the deadly territory between opposing trenches
Weapons used to break the stalemate and reintroduce movement into the war
Gas, mustard gas, tanks, and airplanes
No Man’s land was strewn with
shell craters, cadavers, and body parts
In 1916, the Germans tried to break the deadlock with a huge assault on
the fortress of Verdun
To relieve the pressure of Verdun, British forces
counterattacked at the Somme and gained a few thousand yards
A combination of Austrian and German forces overran
Serbia, Albania, and Romania
Combined German-Austrian forces drove the Russian armies out of
East Prussia and out of Poland and established a defensive line that extended from the Baltic to the Ukraine
Russian defeats undermined the popularity of the tsar and his government and play a significant role in
rostering revolutionary ferment within Russian society
Rules of Engagement made civilians
targets of warfare from air attacks and naval blockades
Home Front
the important reality that the outcome of the war hinged on how effectively each nation mobilized its economy and activated its noncombatant citizens to support the war effort
The response of war weariness and a decline in economic capability the response of belligerents was to
limit individual freedoms and give control of society increasingly to military leaders
Each belligerent government eventually militarized civilian war production by
subordinating private enterprises to governmental control and imposing severe discipline on the labor process
The war created unprecedent demands for raw materials and
manufactured goods
Planning Boards
reorganized entire industries, set production quotas and priorities, and determined what would be produced and consumed
Because bloody battlefields caused an insatiable appetite for soldiers, nations responded by
extending military service by the age gap
This drew women into many formerly male jobs in a wide variety of industries and public sectors
a combination of patriotism and high wages
The most crucial work performed by women during the war was
the making of shells
Once the war was over, many women workers
found themselves forced to concede their jobs to men
The Extension of voting rights to women shortly after the war was in part due to the
role women assumed during the Great War
To maintain the spirit of the home front and to counter threats to national unity,
governments resorted to the restriction of civil liberties, censorship of bad news, and vilification of the enemy through propaganda campaigns
People who criticized their nation’s war effort were
prosecuted as traitors
The propaganda offices of the belligerent nations tried to convince the public that
military defeat would mean the destruction of everything worth living for
Public disbelief of wartime propaganda led to an
inability to believe in the abominations perpetrated in later wars
The 3 reasons for the war’s expansion
1 European governments carried their animosities into their colonies, embroiling them in their war. 2 Europe’s human reserves weren’t enough to satisfy the appetite of war. 3 The entrance of Japan, the U.S., and the Ottoman empire into the war
In 1914, the Japanese government sent an ultimatum to Germany that demanded
the handover of the German-leased territory of Jiaozhou to Japanese authorities and to withdraw its warships from Japanese and Chinese waters
When Germany refused to comply with the Japanese,
the Japanese entered the war on the side of the allies
In January 1915, the Japanese presented the Chinese government with
21 secret demands
Chinese diplomats leaked the note to
British authorities
The 21 Demands
reflected Japan’s determination to dominate east Asia and served as the basis for future Japanese pressure on China
The Ottomans worked to turn the millions of Muslim subjects in
British, French, and Russian territories against their rulers declaring a jihad on the Allied Powers
Winston Churchill proposed a plan to
break the bloody stalemate on the western front by striking against Ottoman territory
The British navy conducted an expedition to seize the approach to the Dardanelles Strait in an attempt to
open a warm water supply line to Russia through the Ottoman controlled strait
The war provided for a campaign of extermination against the Ottoman empire’s Armenians which caused friction between
Christian Armenians and Muslim Ottoman authorities
The new Turkish nationalism stressed Turkish culture and traditions and regarded these minorities as obstacles to Turkism
Christian minorities
The government unleashed a murderous campaign against the Armenians which included
mass evacuations followed by starvation, dehydration, and exposure
Government organized massacres claimed victims through
mass drowning, incineration, or assaults with blunt instruments
Rose up against Turkish rule, supported by the British
The nomadic Bedouin of Arabia, Hussein Bin Ali sharif of Mecca and king of the Hejaz
The motivation for the Arab revolt centered on
securing independence from the Ottoman empire and creating a unified Arab nation spanning lands from Syria to Yemen
When the war erupted in Europe, all of sub-Saharan Africa (except Ethiopia and Liberia) consisted of European colonies, with the Germans controlling four
Togoland, the Cameroons, German Southwest Africa, and German East Africa
The war amplified existing stresses to such an extent that the
Romanov dynasty was forced to abdicate in favor of a provisional government
The provisional government yielded power to Bolshevik revolutionaries who took
Russia out of the war early in 1918
The entrance of the United States into the conflict in 1917,
turned the tide of war in 1918
The resources of the United States compelled the
Central Powers to sue for peace in November 1918
The victorious Allies gathered in Paris to
hammer out a peace settlement that turned out to be a compromise that pleased few of the parties involved
The war of 1914-1918
undermined Europe’s power and simultaneously promoted nationalist aspirations among colonized peoples
Disintegrating armies, mutinies, and food shortages provoked
a series of street demonstrations and strikes in Petrograd (St. Petersburg)
The inability of police forces to suppress the uprisings and the mutiny of troops garrisoned in the captial persuaded
Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate the throne
The February Revolution caused
the political power to shift into two new agencies; the provisional government and the Petrograd soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies
Soviets
revolutionary councils organized by socialists
Soviets wielded
considerable power through their control of factories and segments of the military
The new government enjoyed support with eliminating the repressive institutions of the tsarist state, but it failed to
satisfy popular demands for an end to war and for land reform
The government promised to
continue the war and bring it to a victorious conclusion
The Petrograd soviet called for
immediate peace
Vladimir llyich Lenin was a
revolutionary Marxist and the leader of the radical Bolshevik socialist party
Lenin called for the legal authority to the soviets and
advocated uncompromising opposition to the war
Crucial to the Bolsheviks obtaining control was the provisional government’s
insistence on continuing the war, its inability to feed the population, and its refusal to undertake land reform
Lenin persuaded the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party to
organize an armed insurrection and seize power in the name of the All-Russian National Congress of Soviets
Winter Palace
the home of the provisional government
After the Winter Palace was stormed by workers, soldiers, and sailors
power passed from the provisional government into the hands of Lenin and the Bolshevik party
The Bolshevik rulers ended Russia’s involvement in the Great War by
signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave the Germans
possession or control of 1/3 of Russia’s territory (The Baltic States, the Caucasus, Finland, Poland, and Ukraine) and one-quarter of its population
The official factor in the United States’ decision to enter the war was
Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare to the British blockade and other ships of Great Britain and all the ships headed to Britain
The Central Powers suffered from food shortages as a result of
the British blockade
The Ottomans were the first to surrender, then
Austria-Hungary, and finally the Germans
The Representatives for the postwar settlement included
Georges Clemenceau, Davidd Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson (France, Britain, and U.S.)
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points for a postwar peace settlement
Agreements(Open Covenants) of peace, absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas in peace and war, the removal of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all nations, adequate guarantees for a reduction in national armaments, adjustments of colonial disputes to give equal weight to the interests of the controlling government and the colonial population, and a call for a general association of nations
The victors of the war demanded
Germany to accept sole responsibility and guilt for causing the war, prohibited Germany and Austria from entering into any sort of political union, and that the defeated Central Powers must pay for the cost of the war and required payment of reparations either in money or in kind
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in additional treaties with
Bulgaria, Austria, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire
The Austro-Hungarian empire was
destroyed
In the Treaty of Sevres, the
Ottoman empire was dissolved, and it called for the surrender of Ottoman Balkan and Arab provinces, and the occupation of eastern and southern Anatolia by foreign powers
The terms of the Treaty of Sevres was defied by
Mustafa Kemal and Turkish nationalists
Kemal organized a national army that drove out
Allied occupation forces, abolished the sultanate, and replaced it with the Republic of Turkey
The Allied Powers officially recognized the Republic of Turkey in a final pace agreement called the
Treaty of Lausanne
At the urging of president Woodrow Wilson, the Covenant of the League of Nations was made
an integral part of the peace treaties, and every signatory to a peace treaty had to accept this new world organization
Article 22 for the Covenant of the League of Nations referred to the colonies and territories of the former Central Powers as
areas inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world
As a result of Article 22,
the administration of the mandates fell to the victorious powers of the Great War
The establishment of mandates in the former territories of the Ottoman empire violated
promises made to Arabs by French and British leaders during the war
The French and British leaders had promised
Jewish nationalists in Europe a homeland in Palestine
The Arabs had hoped to form independent states, the French and British,
established mandates
The Great War did irreparable damage to
European power and prestige and set the stage for a process of decolonization that gather momentum during and after the Second World War
The decline in European power was closely related to
diminished economic stature
Note
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