AP Euro - World War I

Causes of the Great War

Nationalism

  • Early 1900s aggressive nationalism became source of tension

  • Germany’s industrial capacity and population and military increased

    • Seeking “place in the sun,” unchecked under Wilhelm II

  • France wanted to regain powerful position after losing Franco-Prussian War

  • Pan Slavism = movement seeking cooperation among all Slavs in the East

    • Wanted Slavic state, backed by Russia (warm water ports)

      • Increased after Russo-Japanese War loss, expansion

    • Ottomans dying out, need to manage receding lands

  • Austria-Hungary opposed Pan Slavism, Russia supported Balkans

    • A-H denying Serbia land, trying to kill epicenter (Sardinia Piedmont parallel)

Militarism

  • Glorification of military, common since 1870s

  • Defense expenditures/production exponentially increase (especially Germany)

  • Militarism and war planning → fear and distrust among nations

    • French Plan XVII = take Alsace-Lorraine w/ full force, fighting spirit “elan”

    • Schlieffen Plan = quickly take Paris through Belgium, turn to meet Russia

      • Avoiding 2-front war, push early to Russia can’t mobilize

  • Military strength > diplomacy to achiever national goals

    • Criticism = Bertha von Sultner’s Lay Down Your Arms 1889

      • Nobel Peace Prize, peace societies

  • Arms race, weapons buildup especially in Britain and Germany

    • German navy (Dreadnought ships) threatening British dominance

Imperialism

  • Scramble for Africa and desire for influence in Pacific enflamed rivalries

    • Now have access to new lands, compete for resources and territory

    • 1885 Berlin Conference to formalize territorial acquisitions

      • Germany late to get African land, France vs Germany

  • 1902 Kruger Telegram and Boer Wars

    • Boers resisting British invasion, won first war w/ Guerilla tactics

    • Telegram a publicized note from Germany praising the Boers

      • Britain wipes out Boers in response

Alliance Systems

  • Bismarck trying to isolate France after the Franco-Prussian War

  • Increased tensions → mutual defense agreements (defend if attacked)

  • 1873 = Three Emperors’ League (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia)

    • Block French alliances, stabilize ethnic tensions, Balkans and warm water

  • 1879 = Dual Alliance (Germany and Austria-Hungary)

    • Russia drops out because the Congress of Berlin 1878

      • Bismarck denied entry into the Balkans, gave to Austria-Hungary

  • 1882 = Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy)

    • Isolate France, help Italian expansion in North Africa

  • 1887 = Russian Reinsurance Treaty (Germany and Russia)

    • Secret alliance, neutrality, don’t get involved in others’ wars

      • Kinda opens Balkans for Russia, Germany can’t interfere

    • Bismarck trying to balance relationship w/ A-H and Russia

  • 1890 = Reinsurance Treaty not renewed by Wilhelm II

    • Thought they were on good terms so didn’t need to, mistake

  • 1894 = Franco-Russian Alliance

    • Russia fears Germany, France desperate for an alliance

  • 1902 = Anglo-Japanese Alliance

    • Worried about Russia’s eastern expansion, protect India

    • Brings Britain back onto stage after Crimean War (“splendid isolation”)

  • 1904 = Entente Cordiale (Britain and France)

    • Not an alliance, friendly agreement because war was on the horizon

    • Settled who got Morocco (France) and Sudan (Britain)

  • 1907 = Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia)

    • Combine Franco-Prussian Alliance and Entente Cordiale

  • Germany tested French alliances w/ Moroccan Crises 1905 and 1911

    • Wilhelm II thought alliances were for show and would disintegrate

    • 1905 Germany incites upheaval with self-determination

      • Britain helps put down, cemented alliance w/ common enemy

    • 1911 war boat, multiple come to put down, isolates Germany

  • 1914 = Willy-Nicky Correspondence (tension b/w Germany and Russia)

    • Both sides figuring out when to mobilize

The Balkan Powder Keg

  • Ottomans lost control and peninsula became tense w/ competing interests

    • Young Turks trying to update empire but failed

  • 1878 Bismarck trying to reduce tensions by backing Serbian independence

    • A-H afraid of a large Serbia (pull more Slavs and become a threat)

  • Bismarck lets A-H “occupy and administer” Bosnia and Herzegovina

    • Blocks Russia from the Mediterranean

  • Serbia wanted to lead Pan Slavism (like Sardinia Piedmont or Prussia)

  • 1908 A-H officially annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, breaks international law

    • Annexed independent states (supposed to just protect), angered Slavs

    • Didn’t start war because Russia not ready, backed away

  • 1912 First Balkan War (Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro)

    • Pushing out the Turks, victory then conflict over land division

    • Serbia wants access to Adriatic Sea, A-H makes Albania to buffer

  • 1913 Second Balkan War

    • Infighting over property, Serbia denied Adriatic Sea and Albania again

  • 1914 Third Balkan War starts World War I

The Chain Reaction

  • June 28 1914 Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife assassinated in Bosnia

    • Liberal heir to throne, would’ve supported autonomy but killed by nationalists

  • Killed by Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip (Black Hand), initially disregarded by Europe

  • A-H blames Serbia and makes harsh demands hoping for war (make it their fault)

    • Want to get rid of Serbs, Germany ready for war w/ Schlieffen Plan

    • Ultimatum, we need to investigate your government (would destroy it)

  • Serbia refuses, Austria-Hungary declares war on July 28

  • Russia mobilizes to prep for war 31 July, Germany declares on Russia and France

    • Germany invades Belgium before declaring war on France

  • Britain declares war on Germany for invading Belgium

The First World War 1914-1918

War Time Alliances

  • Central Powers = Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire

  • Allied Powers = Britain, France, Russia (later Italy and United States)

Industrial War

  • Many Europeans still romanticized war and looked forward to it

    • Last general war was Napoleon, only stories left

  • Few recognized how new tech would make war enormously destructive

  • Dynamite, machine guns, tanks, subs, planes, poison gas, artillery (howitzers)

    • Tanks to break the stalemate of trench warfare

    • Uboats violated unwritten rules of war, gas outlawed after war

Battle Fronts

  • Germany has to fight France to the west and Russia to the east

  • Schlieffen Plan failed because they were held up in Belgium, fight in Marne

  • Both sides dig elaborate trench system 600+ miles (North Sea to Switzerland)

    • Produced 4-year stalemate w/ unprecedented casualties

  • Western front became war of attrition, determined outcome (strongest survive)

  • Brutality of western front captured in antiwar novel All Quiet on the Western Front

  • Eastern front from Baltic to Black Sea, Russians doing poorly

    • Germany leadership Ludendorf and Hindenburg

  • Southern front b/w Austria-Hungary and Italy

  • Fighting in Middle East and Africa b/w Allies and Ottomans (proxy, colonies)

The Home Front

  • Initial enthusiasm, even socialists become nationalists

    • SPD (Reichstag's socialist party) working with Kaiser for “Burgfrieden”

      • Both want civil peace and hate Britain, war cooperation

  • Women entering workforce w/ mass conscription, factories and nursing

    • Laissez-faire → directed economy, donations

  • Governments mobilize all industrial resources, total war

    • War bonds for short-term money, rationing

  • Walther Rathenau directed Germany’s Raw Materials Board

    • Rationing down to the calorie, forced labor

  • War created near full employment, labor union cooperation

  • British women led by Emmeline Pankhurst sought suffrage, granted 1918

  • London Night Raids by German Zeppelins, civilians targeted to break will

  • Governments tightly control news and propaganda, White Feather Society

  • Pressures of total war → strikes, mutinies, demonstrations

    • Ireland 1916 Easter Rebellion, foundations for home rule/independence

The Russian Revolution

The End of Romanov Rule

  • Russian armies suffered from a lack of supplies, 7 million casualties by 1917

  • Political system (weak Duma and strong Czar) not conducive to total war

    • Czar absent, no strong force to lead country at home when off at war

  • Czar Nicholas II proved an inept wartime leader, no formal training

  • September 1915 Czar commanded army at front and left wife and advisor in control

    • Czarina Alexandra with advisor Grigori Rasputin (monk)

    • Son Alexei a hemophiliac, Rasputin helps heal w/ “mystical powers”

  • Early 1917 food shortages in St Petersburg (Petrograd), workers and women strike

    • Lack of resources and government reform, angry w/ czar

  • Nicholas ordered troops to restore order but joined protests

    • Soviet of Petrodrad = group of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies

      • Represent wants/desires, spread cause

  • March 11 1917 Nicholas II abdicates in favor of nephew (sick son)

    • End of 3 centuries of Romanov rule and Czarist regime

The Provisional Government

  • Duma formed provisional government led by Alexander Kerensky (soviet member)

  • New constitution made Russia theoretically freest country in the world

    • Equality under law, free speech/assembly/religion, unions and strikes, elected officials, amnesty, 8 hour workday

    • Against full socialist revolution, too upsetting, moderate approach

  • Provisional government shared power w/ Petrograd Soviet

    • Constitutional democrats and liberals want war

    • Petrograd Soviet doesn’t want war

      • Mensheviks wanted war for land by shied away

      • Bolsheviks and Lenin antiwar (capitalist game, exploitative)

  • Summer 1917 Kerensky authorized new offensive on eastern front despite losses

  • Army Order Number 1 (March 1) put groups of soldiers in charge of offensives

    • Army officers dismissed, ordered by Petrograd before abdication

    • Soldiers scared of czar’s return and backlash, inexperience

Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution

  • Believed only a violent revolution could destroy capitalism, no gradual reform

  • Human leadership > historical laws made real revolutions

    • Lenin thought revolutions were created from people, leaders to guide

    • Marx thought revolution were set in stone, fate that comes w/ time

  • Russia’s small working class couldn’t develop class consciousness

    • Disciplined group of professional revolutionaries must lead

  • Unlike other socialists Lenin wasn’t moved by 1914 nationalism

    • Saw war as destabilizing movement to seize power

  • April 1917 Germans smuggle Lenin out of Swiss exile into Russia

  • Lenin’s April Theses = stop working w/ bourgeois gov’t, nationalize banks and land

    • “All power to the soviets” and “peace, land, bread”

  • Summer 1917 Bolsheviks support in Petrograd, small minority in soviet by October

  • Kornilov Affair = right wing conservatives attempt to end provisional government

    • Allows Bolsheviks to be seen as protectors of soviets

  • Politburo = Bolshevik organization to lead revolution, Trotsky and Stalin (red army)

  • October revolution, violence in the streets

  • Leon Trotsky organized forces preparing to seize power in name of Petrograd Soviet

  • Nov 1917 Trotsky seized power from provisional government, little pushback

  • Late 1917 Russia in anarchy, power available to seize

    • Bolsheviks trying to eliminate enemies (Mensheviks) w/ Cheka secret police

  • Lenin proclaimed establishment of new Bolshevik government

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

  • Lenin realized survival of regime depended on ending war w/ Germany

  • March 1918 Bolsheviks sign treaty and lose ¼ of European land and 1/3 of population

    • Capital moves from Petrograd to Moscow, more defensive position

  • Russia later repudiated treaty after war, null and void

    • Allies don’t want Germany to have the land taken from Russia

Dictatorship and Civil War

  • Bolsheviks immediately legalized peasant seizures of land (redistribution)

    • Direct control of factories to workers

  • January 1918 Bolsheviks forcefully disperse elected Constituent Assembly

    • Because the Bolsheviks lost the November 1917 election

  • Summer 1918 Bolshevik destruction of democracy → civil war

    • “White” armies sought to overthrow Lenin

  • Trotsky formed highly disciplined Red Army and won civil war 1920

  • Communists win because they controlled a strategic central position

    • Organized army, peasant support

  • “White” army divided and lacked a single/clear political program

  • Communists mobilized home front, war communism

    • Total war, forced labor and rationing, nationalized land, trade through gov’t

  • Communists use terror to maintain discipline and subdue opposition (Cheka)

  • Allies’ military intervention, Operation Archangel in Murmansk

    • Led to Russian resentment against “whites” and foreign support

    • Soldiers stuck in contested land, block German goods/Japan from Siberia

  • Nicholas II and family murdered by Cheka to prevent return to power

  • 1922 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics formed, first communist country

The Peace Settlement

Armistice

  • 1916 after Somme and Verdun battles German generals become de facto rulers

    • Hindenburg and Ludendorf

  • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk let Germany move troops to western front

    • Last chance to make big push, Meuse-Argonne offensive

    • Failed because United States joined war, fresh and energetic

  • November 1918 German military discipline collapsed, out of soldiers

    • Kaiser abdicates, socialist leaders declare a republic (Friedrich Ebert)

  • November 11 1918 new German leaders agree to Allied armistice terms

    • Allies promised good terms based on 14 points, fair treatment

    • Important later for Hitler’s “stab in the back” myth (socialists betrayed us)

The Fourteen Points

  • President Woodrow Wilson a spokesman for just and lasting peace

  • Fourteen points intended to make “the war to end all wars”

  • Called for open diplomacy, free seas, reduction of armaments/tariffs

  • Supported returning Alsace-Lorraine to France

  • Tries re-dividing Europe but lacked understanding of ethnic tensions

    • Attempts at self-determination, free Poland

  • Called for “general association of nations” to preserve peace and security

    • Concert system after Congress of Vienna → League of Nations

  • Idealistic proposals undermined by secret treaties and desire to punish Germany

The Paris Peace Conference

  • 30 Countries represented but the Big Three decided ultimate ending

    • David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson

    • Victorio Orlando of Italy wanted land but denied, left conference

  • Germany and Austria-Hungary not allowed in, Russia not invited (also Civil War)

The Treaty of Versailles

  • Germany lost 13% of land including Alsace-Lorraine

  • German African and Pacific territories given to France, Britain, and Japan

  • Mandates administered on behalf of League of Nations

  • Poland independence, “Polish Corridor” to sea cut Eastern Prussia from Germany

  • German army limited to 100k men, banned artillery and aircraft and submarines

  • East bank of Rhine was demilitarized (Allies have right to occupy for 15 years)

  • Germany declared guilty of starting war and forced to pay reparations

  • Allies create League of Nations to discuss/settle w/o war (diplomacy)

  • June 1919 final signing in Versailles Hall of Mirrors

    • Where Germany’s Second Reich started in 1871, bookend

  • Bitterness b/w victors and defeated → World War II in 20 years

  • Criticism = John Maynard Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace 1919

    • Harsh provisions → economic downturn → political unrest → war

    • “Helping” Germany w/ debt is really passing problem around

  • Peace led to social equality (classes and sexes) and destroyed absolutist states

A New Map of Europe

  • Austria-Hungary dissolved into separate countries and Hapsburgs eliminated

  • New countries Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (ethnic tensions)

  • Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania independent from Russia

  • Ottoman Empire dissolved and replaced by Turkey (League of Nation mandates)

    • Syria and Lebanon to France, Iraq and Palestine to Britain