WORLD WAR I

1
WORLD WAR I

• THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

2
At the beginning of the War, there were 2
alliances in place. The first was called the
Triple Alliance, but it grew and became known as
the Central Powers Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.
3
The second alliance was called the Triple
Entente, and became known as the Allied Powers or
Allies. They included England, France, Russia.
Later they would expand to include Serbia,
Italy, Portugal, the United States, and colonies
of all of these countries.
4
All European countries had military plans in case
of the outbreak of war. Germanys plan was known
as the Schlieffen Plan. It called for a holding
action of the Russians in the East and a 5
pronged encirclement of Paris and the French army
in the West.
5
To do this they had to travel through neutral
Belgium, which contributed to the British
entering the war. The war in the East against
the Russians went surprisingly well. The Germans
defeated the Russians in decisive battles.
6
The Western Front was different. In 1914 at the
first Battle of the Marne, the French army
stopped the German advance just outside of Paris.
They used taxicabs from Paris to transport fresh
troops to the front line. The soldiers from both
sides dug in, and basically did not move from
those spots.
7
The soldiers on both sides dug elaborate trenches
to protect themselves. The line of trenches
stretched from the English Channel to
Switzerland. Soldiers lived and fought in the
trenches.
8
The longer that the war dragged on, the more
elaborate the trench systems became on both
sides. They included lines of parallel trenches
connected by communications trenches that ran
diagonal or perpendicular.
9
In between the two lines was an area known as No
Mans Land. It was a bad place to be as it was
in the middle of the two trench systems and
provided no cover. Soldiers could fire weapons
from the trenches on either side and easily hit
someone traveling across No Mans Land.
10
No Mans Land was covered with shell holes and
barbed wire. This invention was a great
hindrance to attacking troops. As a result, both
sides sent out wiring parties at night to extend
the wire. Many never returned.
11
Trenches were obviously used for defense, and
contained machine guns and snipers in addition to
regular soldiers.
12
But the trenches were also the places where the
attack started. The call for over the top,
boys! meant risking death to race across No
Mans Land to try to take the enemy trench,.
13
With the stalemate in the trenches came the
invention of new weapons. One was mustard gas
which not only burned the skin, but caused
breathing problems. Troops had to be fitted with
gas masks in case of attack. Both sides used gas
against each other.
14
Other weapons such as the airplane saw their
first action in the war as well. They were
originally used only to spot troop positions.
Eventually they were fitted with machine guns and
bombs. Aerial dog-fighting was developed
during World War I.
15
Other weapons were developed to try to end the
trench warfare. One such weapon was the tank.
Early tanks could cross over No Mans Land and
enemy trenches, but were expensive and slow.
16
Also developed to break the stalemate of trench
warfare was the flamethrower.
17
On the seas, not only were the new dreadnaughts
or battleships being used against each other, but
submarines (shooting torpedoes) were used to
destroy enemy ships.
18
To try to convince other nations to join their
cause, both the Central Powers and the Allies
distributed Propaganda.
19
The Allied propaganda was a little more
sophisticated most of the time. German
Propaganda mainly appealed to their sense of
patriotism as seen below.