The Great War Notes

World War I became a global event, impacting multiple continents and requiring extensive governmental resources.
It propelled the United States into a position of international power, which it maintains today.

Unrestricted submarine warfare: A naval strategy where submarines sink vessels without warning.
Total war: A conflict where countries dedicate all resources to the war effort.
Rationing: A system where people can only buy small amounts of items needed for the war effort.
Propaganda: Biased information used to sway public opinion and maintain support for the war.
Armistice: An agreement to cease fighting.

World War I extended beyond Europe, involving countries like Australia, Japan, and India.
The Ottoman Turks and Bulgaria allied with Germany and the Central Powers.
Great Powers sought additional allies globally and opened new war fronts to gain an advantage.

Combatants looked beyond Europe to break the stalemate, but new alliances and battlefronts had limited impact.

Allies aimed to attack the Dardanelles to capture Constantinople, defeat the Turks, and establish a supply line to Russia.
The Gallipoli campaign began in February 1915 with British, Australian, New Zealand, and French troops assaulting the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Turkish troops, with German officers, defended the region, leading to a bloody stalemate.
Both sides entrenched themselves, battling for the rest of the year. By December, the Allies evacuated, suffering approximately 250,000 casualties.

Germany's colonial possessions in Asia and Africa were attacked.
Japan seized German outposts in China and Pacific island colonies.
English and French troops attacked and seized control of three of Germany’s four African possessions.
British and French forces recruited subjects from colonies such as India, South Africa, Senegal, Egypt, Algeria, and Indochina to fight and work. Many colonial subjects hoped that service would lead to independence.
Indian political leader Mohandas Gandhi supported Indian participation, believing it would improve their status through cooperation with the British.

In 1917, the war's focus shifted to the high seas, with Germany intensifying submarine warfare.
In January 1917, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare, targeting any ship around Britain.
On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat sank the British passenger ship Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 U.S. citizens.
Germany claimed the ship carried ammunition, which was true, but the American public was outraged, and President Wilson protested.
After further attacks, Germany initially stopped targeting neutral and passenger ships.
Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, gambling that a naval blockade would defeat Britain before the U.S. could mobilize.
German U-boats sank three American ships.
The Zimmermann note, intercepted in February 1917, revealed Germany's offer to help Mexico reconquer land lost to the U.S. if Mexico allied with Germany.
On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, and the U.S. joined the Allies.
America's economic ties, common ancestry, language, and similar democratic and legal systems with England were stronger than those with the Central Powers.

By the time the U.S. joined, the war had raged for nearly three years, causing immense casualties and altering lives.
World War I became a total war, with countries dedicating all resources to the war effort.
Governments in Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia, and France controlled their economies, directing factories' production.

Wartime governments took control of the economy.
Governments directed factories to produce specific goods and quantities.
Facilities were converted to munitions factories.
Nearly every able-bodied civilian was employed.
Unemployment in many European countries virtually disappeared.
Rationing was implemented due to shortages, limiting the amounts of goods that people could buy. Rationing covered items from butter to shoe leather.
Antiwar activity was suppressed, and war news was censored.
Propaganda was used to maintain morale and support for the war.

In the spring of 1918, a deadly strain of influenza, known as the Spanish flu, emerged.
It spread through Europe, Russia, Asia, and the United States, killing soldiers and civilians alike.
In India, at least 12 million people died, and in Berlin, 1,500 died in a single day in October.
The epidemic was more destructive than the war itself, killing 20 million people worldwide.

Total war led governments to seek help from women as never before.
Women replaced men in factories, offices, and shops, building tanks and munitions, plowing fields, paving streets, and running hospitals.
They supplied troops with food, clothing, and weapons.
Although most women left the workforce after the war, the war changed people’s views of women's capabilities.
Women also worked as nurses near the front lines, witnessing the horrors of war firsthand.

With the U.S. joining the war, the balance seemed to shift in favor of the Allies.
Events in Russia gave Germany a victory on the Eastern Front.

In March 1917, civil unrest in Russia, due to war-related shortages, forced Czar Nicholas to step down, and a provisional government was established.
By 1917, nearly 5.5 million Russian soldiers had been wounded, killed, or taken prisoner.
The war-weary Russian army refused to fight any longer.
In November 1917, Communist leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin seized power and sought to end Russia’s involvement in the war.
In March 1918, Germany and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the war between them.

Russia’s withdrawal allowed Germany to send nearly all its forces to the Western Front.
In March 1918, Germany launched a final massive attack on the Allies in France and reached the Marne River, about 40 miles from Paris.
The German military weakened, and the Allies, aided by nearly 140,000 fresh U.S. troops, launched a counterattack.
In July 1918, the Allies and Germans clashed at the Second Battle of the Marne, with 350 tanks smashing through German lines.
With the arrival of 2 million more American troops, the Allied forces advanced toward Germany.
The Bulgarians and Ottoman Turks surrendered.
In October, revolution swept through Austria-Hungary.
In Germany, soldiers mutinied, and the public turned on the kaiser.
On November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped down, and Germany declared itself a republic.
A representative of the new German government signed an armistice with French Commander Marshal Foch on November 11, ending World War I.

World War I involved new technologies and ushered in war on a global scale.
It left behind a landscape of death and destruction.
About $8.5$ million soldiers died, and $21$ million were wounded.
Countless civilians died from starvation, disease, and slaughter.
The war drained European countries' treasuries, costing an estimated $338$ billion.
It destroyed farmland, homes, villages, and towns.
The suffering led to disillusionment, reflected in art and literature.
The peace agreements prompted anger and resentment.