The Road to World War I

Nationalism and the System of Alliances

• In the first half of the nineteenth century, liberals believed that if European states were organized along national lines, these states would work together and create a peaceful Europe.

  • They were wrong.

• At the same time, Europe’s great powers had been divided into two loose alliances.

• Germany, Austria- Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance in 1882.

• France, Great Britain, and Russia created the Triple Entente in 1907.

• In the early years of the twentieth century, a series of crises tested these alliances.

  • The growth of nationalism in the nineteenth century had yet another serious result.

Internal Dissent

• National desires were not the only source of internal strife at the beginning of the twentieth century.

• Some conservative leaders, alarmed at the increase in labor strife and class division, feared that European nations were on the verge of revolution.

Militarism

• The growth of mass armies after 1900 heightened the existing tensions in Europe.

• The large size of these armies also made it obvious that if war did come, it would be highly destructive.

• Conscription, a military draft, had been established as a regular practice in most Western countries before 1914.

  • With its 1.3 million men, the Russian army had grown to be the largest.

• Militarism — aggressive preparation for war— was growing. As armies grew, so too did the influence of military leaders.

  • Military leaders feared that any changes in these plans would cause chaos in the armed forces.

The Outbreak of War: Summer 1914

• By 1914, Serbia, supported by Russia, was deter- mined to create a large, independent Slavic state in the Balkans.

  • Many Europeans saw the potential danger in this explosive situation.

• On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophia, visited the Bosnian city of Sarajevo.

  • A group of conspirators waited there in the streets.

  • The conspirators were members of the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist organization that wanted Bosnia to be free of Austria-Hungary and to become part of a large Serbian kingdom.

  • The conspirators planned to kill the archduke, along with his wife.

  • Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year- old Bosnian Serb, succeeded in shooting both the archduke and his wife.

• The Austro-Hungarian government did not know whether or not the Serbian government had been directly involved in the archduke’s assassination, but it did not care.

• Austrian leaders wanted to attack Serbia but feared Russian intervention on Serbia’s behalf, so they sought the backing of their German allies.

• Emperor William II of Germany and his chancellor responded with a “blank check,” saying that Austria Hungary could rely on Germany’s “full support,” even if “matters went to the length of a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia.”

  • Strengthened by German support, Austrian leaders sent an ultimatum to Serbia on July 23.

  • Russia was determined to support Serbia’s cause.

• On July 28, Czar Nicholas II ordered partial mobilization of the Russian army against Austria-Hungary.

  • Mobilization is the process of assembling troops and supplies and making them ready for war.

  • In 1914, mobilization was considered an act of war.

• Leaders of the Russian army informed the czar that they could not partially mobilize.

• Indeed, Germany reacted quickly.

• Like the Russians, the Germans had a military plan.

• It had been drawn up under the guidance of General Alfred von Schlieffen so was known as the Schlieffen Plan

  • Under the Schlieffen Plan, Germany could not mobilize its troops solely against Russia.

• On August 4, Great Britain declared war on Ger- many, officially for violating Belgian neutrality.

The War

1914 to 1915: Illusions and Stalemate

• Before 1914, many political leaders had thought that war involved so many political and economic risks that it would not be worth fighting.

  • At the beginning of August 1914, both ideas were shattered.

• However, the new illusions that replaced them soon proved to be equally foolish.

• Government propaganda—ideas spread to influence public opinion for or against a cause—had worked in stirring up national hatreds before the war.

  • A new set of illusions also fed the enthusiasm for war.

• German hopes for a quick end to the war rested on a military gamble.

  • The German advance was halted a short distance from Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 6–10).

• The war quickly turned into a stalemate, as neither the Germans nor the French could dislodge each other from the trenches they had dug for shelter.

  • The Western Front had become bogged down in trench warfare that kept both sides in virtually the same positions for four years.

• At the beginning of the war, the Russian army moved into eastern Germany but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg on August 30 and the Battle of Masurian Lakes on September 15.

• Austria-Hungary, Germany’s ally, fared less well at first.

  • By this time, the Germans had come to the aid of the Austrians.

• Buoyed by their success, Germany and Austria- Hungary, joined by Bulgaria in September 1915, attacked and eliminated Serbia from the war.

1916 to 1917: The Great Slaughter

• On the Western Front, the trenches dug in 1914 had by 1916 become elaborate systems of defense.

  • The unexpected development of trench warfare baffled military leaders.

• At times, the high command on either side would order an offensive that would begin with an artillery barrage to flatten the enemy’s barbed wire and leave the enemy in a state of shock.

  • The attacks rarely worked because men advancing unprotected across open fields could be fired at by the enemy’s machine guns.

• World War I had turned into a war of attrition, a war based on wearing the other side down by constant attacks and heavy losses.

• By the end of 1915, airplanes had appeared on the battlefront for the first time in history.

• The Germans also used their giant airships — the zeppelins — to bomb London and eastern England.

Widening of the War

• Because of the stalemate on the Western Front, both sides sought to gain new allies who might provide a winning advantage.

• The Allies tried to open a Balkan front by landing forces at Gallipoli, southwest of Constantinople, in April 1915.

  • In return for Italy entering the war on the Allied side, France and Great Britain promised to let Italy have some Austrian territory.

  • Italy on the side of the Allies opened up a front against Austria-Hungary.

• By 1917, the war that had started in Europe had truly become a world conflict.

• In the Middle East, a British officer known as Lawrence of Arabia, in 1917, urged Arab princes to revolt against their Ottoman overlords.

  • The Allies also took advantage of Germany’s preoccupations in Europe and lack of naval strength to seize German colonies in the rest of the world.

Entry of the United States

• At first, the United States tried to remain neutral.

  • As World War I dragged on, however, it became more difficult to do so.

• Britain had used its superior naval power to set up a naval blockade of Germany.

  • On May 7, 1915, the British ship Lusitania was sunk by German forces.

• By January 1917, however, the Germans were eager to break the deadlock in the war.

• When the emperor expressed concern about the United States, he was told not to worry.

• The German naval officers were quite wrong.

The Home Front: The Impact of Total War

• As World War I dragged on, it became a total war, involving a complete mobilization of resources and people.

  • Masses of men had to be organized and supplies had to be manufactured and purchased for years of combat.

• Most people had expected the war to be short, so little thought had been given to long-term wartime needs.

• Throughout Europe, wartime governments also expanded their power over their economies.

  • In effect, in order to mobilize all the resources of their nations for the war effort, European nations set up planned economies— systems directed by government agencies.

  • Under conditions of total war mobilization, the differences between soldiers at war and civilians at home were narrowed.

• As the war continued and casualties grew worse, the patriotic enthusiasm that had marked the early stages of World War I waned.

  • Authoritarian regimes, such as those of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, relied on force to subdue their populations.

• Wartime governments made active use of propaganda to arouse enthusiasm for the war.

• As the war progressed and morale sagged, governments were forced to devise new techniques for motivating the people.

• World War I created new roles for women.

  • Because so many men left to fight at the front, women were asked to take over jobs that had not been available to them before.

  • At the end of the war, governments would quickly remove women from the jobs they had encouraged them to take earlier.

• Nevertheless, in some countries the role played by women in wartime economies had a positive impact on the women’s movement for social and political emancipation.

• Many upper- and middle-class women had also gained new freedoms.

The Russian Revolution

Background to Revolution

• Russia was unprepared both militarily and technologically for the total war of World War I.

  • In addition, Russian industry was unable to produce the weapons needed for the army.

• Czar Nicholas II was an autocratic ruler who relied on the army and bureaucracy to hold up his regime.

  • With the czar at the battlefront, Alexandra made all of the important decisions

• As the leadership at the top stumbled its way through a series of military and economic disasters, the Russian people grew more and more upset with the czarist regime.

  • For a start, they assassinated Rasputin in December 1916.

• At the beginning of March 1917, a series of strikes led by working-class women broke out in the capital city of Petrograd

• Many of the women who stood in the lines waiting for bread were also factory workers who worked 12-hour days.

  • On March 8, about 10,000 women marched through the city of Petro- grad demanding “Peace and Bread” and “Down with Autocracy.”

• The Duma, or legislative body, which the czar had tried to dissolve, met anyway.

• The provisional government, headed by Alexander Kerensky, now decided to carry on the war to preserve Russia’s honor.

• The government was also faced with a challenge to its authority—the soviets.

The Rise of Lenin

• The Bolsheviks began as a small faction of a Marxist party called the Russian Social Democrats.

• The Bolsheviks came under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov, known to the world as V. I. Lenin.

  • Under Lenin’s direction, the Bolsheviks became a party dedicated to violent revolution.

• Between 1900 and 1917, Lenin spent most of his time abroad.

  • Lenin’s arrival in Russia opened a new stage of the Russian Revolution.

• At the same time, the Bolsheviks reflected the discontent of the people.

The Bolsheviks Seize Power

• By the end of October, Bolsheviks made up a slight majority in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets.

  • This overthrow of the provisional government coincided with a meeting in Petrograd of the all-Russian Congress of Soviets, which represented local soviets from all over the country.

• The Bolsheviks, who soon renamed themselves the Communists, still had a long way to go.

• On March 3, 1918, Lenin signed the Treaty of BrestLitovsk with Germany and gave up eastern Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces.

Civil War in Russia

• Many people were opposed to the new Bolshevik, or Communist, regime.

• Between 1918 and 1921, the Communist (Red) Army was forced to fight on many fronts against these opponents.

  • The first serious threat to the Communists came from Siberia.

  • By 1920, however, the major White forces had been defeated and Ukraine retaken.

• The royal family was another victim of the civil war.

  • After the czar abdicated, he, his wife, and their five children had been taken into captivity

Triumph of the Communists

• The Red Army was a well-disciplined fighting force.

• This was largely due to the organizational genius of Leon Trotsky.

  • As commissar of war, Trotsky reinstated the draft and insisted on rigid discipline.

• Furthermore, the disunity of the anti-Communist forces weakened their efforts

• The Whites, then, had no common goal.

• The Communists were also able to translate their revolutionary faith into practical instruments of power.

  • A policy of war communism, for example, was used to ensure regular supplies for the Red Army.

• Another Communist instrument was revolutionary terror.

• Finally, the presence of foreign armies on Russian soil enabled the Communists to appeal to the powerful force of Russian patriotism.

• By 1921, the Communists were in total command of Russia.

End of the War

The Last Year of the War

• The year 1917 had not been a good one for the Allies.

• Allied offensives on the Western Front had been badly defeated.

  • On the positive side, the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 gave the Allies a much-needed psychological boost, along with fresh men and material.

• For Germany, the withdrawal of the Russians offered new hope for a successful end to the war.

  • Germany was now free to concentrate entirely on the Western Front.

• The German attack was launched in March 1918.

• With more than a million American troops pouring into France, Allied forces began a steady advance toward Germany.

• German officials soon discovered that the Allies were unwilling to make peace with the autocratic imperial government of Germany.

• On November 3, sailors in the town of Kiel, in northern Germany, mutinied.

• After William II’s departure, the Social Democrats under Friedrich Ebert announced the creation of a democratic republic.

• Two days later, on November 11, 1918, the new German government signed an armistice (a truce, an agreement to end the fighting).

  • The new Social Democratic government, backed by regular army troops, crushed the rebels and murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, leaders of the German Communists.

• Austria-Hungary, too, experienced disintegration and revolution.

• The empire had been replaced by the independent republics of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, along with the large monarchical state called Yugoslavia.

The Peace Settlements

• In January 1919, representatives of 27 victorious Allied nations met in Paris to make a final settlement of the Great War.

• No one expressed these idealistic reasons better than the U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson.

• Wilson portrayed World War I as a people’s war against “absolutism and militarism.”

• Wilson became the spokesperson for a new world order based on democracy and international cooperation.

• Delegates met in Paris in early 1919 to determine the peace settlement.

• National interests also complicated the delibera- tions of the Paris Peace Conference.

• David Lloyd George, prime minister of Great Britain, had won a decisive victory in elections in December of 1918

• France’s approach to peace was chiefly guided by its desire for national security.

• To Georges Clemenceau, the premier of France, the French people had suffered the most from German aggression.

  • Clemenceau wanted Germany stripped of all weapons, vast German payments—reparations—to cover the costs of the war, and a separate Rhineland as a buffer state between France and Germany.

• The most important decisions at the Paris Peace Conference were made by Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George.

• In view of the many conflicting demands at the peace conference, it was no surprise that the Big Three quarreled.

• Clemenceau also compromised to obtain some guarantees for French security.

• The final peace settlement of Paris consisted of five separate treaties with the defeated nations—Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

  • The Germans considered it a harsh peace.

  • The military and territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles also angered the Germans.

• German land along both sides of the Rhine was made a demilitarized zone and stripped of all weapons and fortifications.

  • As a result of the war, the Treaty of Versailles, and the separate peace treaties made with the other Central Powers—Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey—the map of Eastern Europe was largely redrawn.

• New nation-states emerged from the lands of these three empires: Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary.

• The Paris Peace Conference was supposedly guided by the principle of self-determination.

  • As a result of compromises, almost every eastern European state was left with ethnic minorities: Germans in Poland; Hungarians, Poles, and Germans in Czechoslovakia; Hungarians in Romania, and the combination of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Albanians in Yugoslavia.

• Yet another centuries-old empire—the Ottoman Empire—was broken up by the peace settlement.

• These acquisitions were officially called mandates.

• World War I shattered the liberal, rational society that had existed in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe.

• World War I was a total war—one that involved a complete mobilization of resources and people.

• The turmoil created by the war also seemed to open the door to even greater insecurity.