Exploring American History

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Exploring American History

• Unit VII- The Beginning of Modern America
• Chapter 23 Section 1
• The Road to War

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The Road to War

• The Big Idea
• In 1914 tensions in Europe exploded into the
  deadliest war the world had ever seen.
• Main Ideas
• Many factors contributed to the outbreak of World
  War I.
• European nations suffered massive casualties in
  the wars early battles.

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Causes of World War I

• No one event or person caused the Great War.
  There were many factors that contributed to
  mobilization of the belligerents
• Five Major factors often identified as causes of
  World War I (but not causes of U.S. entry)
• Militarism
• Alliances
• Imperialism
• Nationalism
• Events or Economics

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Main Idea 1 Many factors contributed to the
outbreak of World War I.

• Nationalism
• Nationalism, a strong sense of pride and loyalty
  to ones nation or culture, created tension
  between nations.
• Austria-Hungary included people from many
  cultural groups.
• Slavic nationalists wanted to break away from
  Austria-Hungary and join the independent Slavic
  country of Serbia.

• Imperialism
• Nations competed for control of territories both
  in Europe and overseas.
• Germany took the Alsace-Lorraine region from
  France in 1871, and France wanted it back.

• Militarism
• Nations focused resources on militarism, the
  aggressive strengthening of armed forces.
• Raced to build armies and navies
• Made alliances to protect themselves

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The Spark

• Feelings of fear and distrust grew among European
  powers in the early 1900s.
• In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and
  Herzegovina.
• Slavic nationalists resisted violently wanted to
  be a part of Serbia
• June 28, 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of
  Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo.
• Killed by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip
• Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia
• Nations began to mobilize, or prepare their
  militaries, for war.

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Pulled into the Fighting
Allied Powers

• Russia, an ally of Serbia
• France, an ally of Russia
• Belgium, brought into the fighting because
  Germany marched through it to get to France
• Great Britain, an ally of Belgium

Central Powers

• Austria-Hungary
• Germany, an ally of Austria-Hungary

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The Great War- Two Sides

• Allied Powers- Triple Entente
• Serbia
• Russia
• France
• Great Britain
• Belgium
• Italy
• Portugal
• Greece
• Japan
• United States

• Central Powers- Triple Alliance
• Austria-Hungary
• Germany Empire
• Bulgaria
• Turkish Empire
• Italy

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• The Great War, as contemporaries called it -- was
  the first man-made catastrophe of the 20th
  century.
• In the weeks after the assassination, none of the
  critical leaders had the power or will to slow
  down the decisions, actions, reactions and
  attitude shifts of key government and military
  leaders.
• By August, millions of Europeans -- especially
  the military and diplomatic leaders of
  Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia -- saw war as
  the way to save their honor, as well as to solve
  the internal and international problems that
  needed to be resolved.

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World War I Begins - The Great War

• Kaiser Wilhelm II on July 5th pledged that
  Germany would fully support Austria-Hungary in
  any action against Serbia.
• On July 23, 1914, Austria-Hungary presented
  Serbia with a lengthy list of demands.
• On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on
  Serbia. World War I had begun.

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Schlieffen Plan
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Schlieffen Plan

• Both sides originally believed that the Great War
  would be over quickly.
• In Germany, this belief was based on a long
  established war strategy called the Schlieffen
  Plan. Start with a German army invading
  Belgium(avoiding eastern French Forts) to reach
  Paris.
• The German generals were so confident of success
  that Kaiser Wilhelm II proclaimed that he would
  have "Paris for lunch, St. Petersburg for
  dinner."
• The plan required precise timing, with no
  interruptions in the timetable -- its first
  objective was to capture Paris in precisely 42
  days, and force the French to surrender. The
  German armies would then shift their focus to the
  eastern front and defeat the Russians before they
  were fully prepared to fight.
• It started quickly on Aug. 2, 1914 with Germany
  invading Luxembourg and Belgium, but the British,
  French and Russians mobilized quicker than
  expected.

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Outbreak of War

• Define- What is nationalism?
• Identify Cause and Effect- Why did other
  countries join the fight between Austria-Hungary
  and Serbia?
• Analyze- How had European Nations prepared for
  war?

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Main Idea 2European nations suffered massive
casualties in the wars early battles.

• The French army blocked the German advance at the
  Marne River, east of Paris, in September 1914.
• The First Battle of Marne marked the first major
  battle of the war.
• French and German forces faced each other along a
  long battle line known as the western front.
• Russian and German armies struggled back and
  forth on the eastern front.
• The war became a stalemate a situation in which
  neither side can win a decisive victory.
• Clear that this war would be longer than expected.

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The First Battle of the Marne
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Stalemate
Poison gas attack, Flanders, Belgium
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The War Reaches a Stalemate

• The First Battle of the Marne ended in a
  stalemate, and both French and German soldiers
  dug trenches, or deep ditches, to defend their
  positions and seek shelter from enemy fire.
• By late 1914, two massive systems of trenches
  stretched 400 miles across Western Europe, and
  the battle lines known as the Western Front
  extended from Switzerland to the North Sea.
• Trench warfare, or fighting from trenches, was an
  old strategy that had been used in Africa, Asia,
  and the Americas.
• This trench warfare, however, was different
  because of its scale.
• Soldiers lived in trenches, surrounded by
  machine-gun fire, flying grenades, and exploding
  artillery shells.
• Opposing forces had machine guns pointed at enemy
  trenches at all times, firing whenever a helmet
  or rifle appeared over the top.
• Thousands of men that ran into the area between
  the trenches, known as no-mans-land, were
  chopped down by enemy fire.
• Neither the Allies nor the Germans were able to
  make significant advances, creating a stalemate,
  or deadlock.

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Technology of War

• Trench warfare, defending a position by fighting
  from the protection of deep ditches, helped make
  the war long and deadly.
• Cold, wet, and muddy
• Disease ran rampant
• New technologies made land warfare even more
  deadly
• Machine guns
• Poison gases
• Tanks

Land

• Airplanes used in large-scale battle for the
  first time
• Fired down on soldiers in the trenches
• Gathered information on enemy locations
• Battled each other in the air in dogfights

Air

• Fighting in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea
• Used Naval blockades and mines to block supply
  lines
• U-boats, German submarines, launched torpedoes
  against Allied supply ships.

Sea
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New Weapons of War
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A New Kind of Warfare

• Word of Germanys invasion of Belgium quickly
  spread to France and other European nations.
• French troops mobilized to meet approaching
  German divisions.
• They looked much as French soldiers did over 40
  years earlier, wearing bright red coats and heavy
  brass helmets.
• The German troops dressed in gray uniforms that
  worked as camouflage on the battlefield.
• French war strategy had not changed much since
  the 1800s.
• French soldiers marched row by row onto the
  battlefield, with bayonets mounted to their field
  rifles, preparing for close combat with the
  Germans.
• The Germans, however, had many machine guns, and
  mowed down some 15,000 French troops per day in
  early battle.
• A well-trained German machine-gun team could set
  up equipment in four seconds, and each machine
  gun matched the firepower of 50 to 100 French
  rifles.
• Many Europeans wrongly thought these
  technological advances would make the war short
  and that France would be defeated in two months.

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Trenches
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Trenches

• The Allies used four "types" of trenches.
• The first, the front-line trench
• support trench,
• reserve trench
• communication trenches

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Life in the Trenches

• Death
• Rat Infestation
• Frogs, Lice and Worse
• The Trench Cycle
• the Smell

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Trenches- Suffering

• Trench Foot
• Trench Mouth
• Trench Fever

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Trenches- Self Inflicted wounds Shell Shock
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Early Battles of the War

• Make Inferences- What effect did having fronts
  in the west, north and east have on the German
  and Russian Armies?
• Evaluate- What is a possible reason that
  soldiers felt safe in the trenches at the onset
  of the war?
• Describe- What was living in a trench like?
• Identify Cause and Effect- The arrival of tanks
  ended what type of fighting technique?

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Early Battles of the War

• Explain- How did the Germans respond to the
  British port blockade?
• Predict- What do you think neutral countries
  might do after German U-boats attacked their
  ships?

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Total War and Slaughter
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World War I Casualties

• Allies
• Belgium 45,550
• British Empire 942,135
• France 1,368,000
• Greece 23,098
• Italy 680,000
• Japan 1,344
• Montenegro 3,000
• Portugal 8,145
• Romania 300,000
• Russia 1,700,000
• Serbia 45,000
• United States 116,516

• Central Powers
• Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
• Bulgaria 87,495
• Germany 1,935,000
• Ottoman Empire 725,000
• Total Casualties
• 65 million mobilized both sides
• 8.5 million killed
• 21 million wounded
• 7.7 million POWs and missing
• 37million total casualties
• 57 of all men mobilized

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Over the Top - An Interactive Adventure 15 min
or the entire period.

• Over The Top

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Weapons of World War I

• If there is time

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Rifles
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Rifles, Bayonets and Hand guns
There was undeniably psychological value to the
infantry in carrying a bayonet, even if in
practice it was seldom used. Bayonets continued
to be commonly issued in the Second World War.
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Hand guns
French
German Luger
Colt 45
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Machine Gun
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Machine Gun
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Poison Gas

• Country Casualties Deaths
• Austria-Hungary 100,000 3,000
• British Empire 88,706 8,109
• France 190,000 8,000
• Germany 200,000 9,000
• Italy 60,000 4,627
• Russia 419,340 56,000
• USA 72,807 1,462
• Others 10,000 1,000

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Poison Gas
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Poison Gas

• Mustard Gas

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Poison Gas- Mustard Gas effects
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Tanks
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Tanks
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Flame-throwers
During the war the Germans launched in excess of
650 flame-thrower attacks no numbers exist for
British or French attacks.
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Grenades
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Mortars and Artillery
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Blimps

• The Zeppelin

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Airplanes

• dogfights
• interrupter equipment

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Poison Gas