Chapter 29 - The Great War

29.1 - Marching Toward War

The rise of nationalism, or a strong attachment to one's homeland, was one such development. Within a country, nationalism can function as a unifying force.
- It can, however, lead to fierce competition among states, with one attempting to outmaneuver the other.
- By the start of the twentieth century, Europe's Great Powers had developed a ferocious rivalry.
The Ottoman Empire, which included the Balkans, was rapidly fading by the early 1900s.
- While some Balkan groups fought to be free of the Ottoman Turks, others had already achieved independence from their Ottoman masters.
- Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia were founded as a result of these peoples' efforts.
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie, plunged into this poisoned atmosphere of mutual hate and suspicion.
- The pair paid a state visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, on June 28, 1914. It would be their final meeting.
- As they travelled through the streets of Sarajevo in an open automobile, the royal couple was shot at point-blank range.
The pair paid a state visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, on June 28, 1914. It would be their final meeting.
- As they travelled through the streets of Sarajevo in an open automobile, the royal couple was shot at point-blank range. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Serbian and Black Hand member, was the assassin.
- The Black Hand was a secret group dedicated to removing Austrian control from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The combat lines were firmly drawn by mid-August 1914.
On one hand, there was Germany, and on the other, there was Austria-Hungary.
- Because of their central location in Europe, they were known as the Central Powers.
- Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would subsequently join the Central Powers in an attempt to reclaim lost territory.
On the Western Front, opposing troops had constructed kilometres of parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire by early 1915.
- This paved the way for the development of trench warfare.
- Soldiers fought each other from trenches in this style of combat. And armies exchanged massive human casualties for pitifully tiny land gains.
Russia's war effort was on the verge of collapsing by 1916. Russia, unlike the countries of Western Europe, had not yet been industrialized.
- As a result, the Russian troops ran out of food, firearms, ammunition, clothing, boots, and blankets on a regular basis.
- Furthermore, German dominance of the Baltic Sea, combined with Germany's unrelenting submarine warfare in the North Sea and beyond, severely hampered Allied supply shipments to Russia.

An attack on the Dardanelles, a province of the Ottoman Empire, appeared to be a promising option for the Allies.
- The Ottoman capital, Constantinople, was reached by this tiny maritime channel.
- The Allies hoped to conquer Constantinople, defeat the Turks, and build a supply line to Russia by controlling the Dardanelles.
- The war's focus turned to the high seas in 1917.
That year, the Germans ramped up submarine warfare in the Atlantic Ocean, which had been raging since the war began.
- The Germans announced in January 1917 that their submarines would sink any ship in the waters around Britain without warning.
Civil unrest in Russia pushed Czar Nicholas to resign in March 1917, owing in large part to war-related food and fuel shortages.
- A provisional government was constituted in his place. The new administration promised to keep fighting the battle.
- By 1917, however, approximately 5.5 million Russian soldiers had been injured, died, or captured.
- As a result, the war-weary Russian army decided to stop fighting.
Due to Russia's departure from the war, Germany was finally able to deploy practically all of its soldiers to the Western Front. The Germans launched one final, overwhelming offensive on the Allies in France in March 1918.
- The German forces, as in the early days of the war, annihilated everything in their path. The Germans had once again crossed the Marne River by late May 1918.
- It was only 40 kilometers to Paris. Victory appeared to be within reach.

President Wilson drafted a series of peace proposals in January 1918, while the war was still raging.
- The Fourteen Points, as they were known, established a strategy for creating an equitable and durable peace.
As the Paris Peace Conference began, neither the United Kingdom nor France showed any signs of agreeing with Wilson's concept of peace.
- National security was a major concern for both countries.
- They also intended to deprive Germany of its military might.
In 1919 and 1920, the Western powers negotiated separate peace treaties with each of the vanquished countries: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.
- The Central Powers also lost a lot of land as a result of these accords.
- The Austro-Hungarian Empire spawned a number of new countries.
- Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia were all given their independence.
The Treaty of Versailles, in the end, achieved little to establish a permanent peace. For one instance, the pact was ultimately rejected by the United States, which was considered the world's preeminent power after the war.
- Many Americans were against the agreement, particularly President Wilson's League of Nations.
- The best hope for peace, Americans believed, was for the US to stay out of European issues.
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