WW1 Global Context 

**WWI Prelude (America)**

The Century: America's Time Shell Shock

 

•     On May 15, 1915, 2,000 passengers boarded the "Lucitania" from New York City

•     German submarines made transatlantic crossings dangerous

•     On its last day at sea, the "Lucitania" was hit by a German torpedo off the Irish coast

○  1200 people drowned due to inability to launch all lifeboats

•     The "Great War" began on July 28, 1914 with the assassination by a Serbian national of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary

•     German Kaiser, English King, French King, and Russian Czar were enthusiastic to go to war

•     Germans were first to attack, taking Belgium and then France

•     By the end of the first year, French casualties approached 1 million due to new weapons

•     "Massacre of Innocents"-Middle Class High School and college students sent to fight at front, die in tens of thousands

•     America was initially neutral, focused on Industrialization, moviemaking

○  Movies exposed Americans to the War in Europe, albeit glamourized

•     US banks loaned money to Britain and France

•     Americans sold arms

•     Largest economic boom in American history

○  Cut off European immigration, encouraged employment of black labor force

•     By Christmas 1914, fighting had spread to Russia, Middle East, and European colonies; eventually included 60 countries

•     Germans dug trench from English Channel to Switzerland

•     By Spring 1915, generals concluded that the best way was to blast enemies out of trenches

•     Machine gun's invention enabled single soldier to wield power of 40 gunmen

•     British invented tank to get through barbed wire

•     Germans invented chemical weapons-beginning with poison gas

•     Stalemate continued from 1915 into 1916

•     Fighting continued in summer 1916 in France with Battle of the Somme, with massive Allied attack

○  20,000 British men killed, 40,000 wounded

•     The Battle of the Somme defined the futility of the warm, lasted 6 months

•     Russia entered Revolution after riots in Petrograd

○  Overthrew Czar, provisional government continued war

○  Allowed for return of Vladimir Lenin and Bolsheviks, encouraged Communist Revolution

•     In October 1917, Lenin led Insurrection against Provisional Government at Czar's Winter Palace

○  Secured Bolshevik victory, withdrawal from war

•     By 1917, German increase in sinking of unarmed ships