Chapter 23-1,2.

Identify and analyze America’s involvement in World War I

Long term causes of American Involvement

• The Triple Alliance – Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary

• Alarmed Russia Franco Russian Alliance• Germany’s navy challenged Britain’s naval

superiority

• Entente Cordiale (friendly understanding)• Triple Entente

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Triple Alliance

Austria, Germany, Italy

Triple Entente

Immediate Causes of the War• Austrian ruler Archduke Franz Ferdinand

visited Bosnia• Bosnian revolutionary Gavrilo Princip shot

Franz Ferdinand• The Black Hand

WWI is referred to as “The Great War”

Bosnian Nationalism

Dominos fall

• Austria Hungary decided to crush Serbia• They feared Russia might retaliate• Germany promised to help Austria if Russia

interfered. • France promised to support Russia if war

began

Guess what happened…Everyone but Britain went to war!

Germany Attacks France

• Germany launched a massive invasion of France

• When they went through neutral Belgium, the British entered the war.

Allies• The Triple

Entente • France, Russia,

Britain• And later… Italy

Central Powers

Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria

Central Powers

How it went…

• The German fast attack worked at first came within 30 miles of taking Paris

• Suddenly the Russians attacked the German flank• Germany had to pull troops away from France to

deal with the Russian attack.

• Then fighting settled into trenches – didn’t change for 3 years

Germany spread across

Europe

Trench Warfare

Trench Sleep

America

• President Wilson wanted America to be neutral

• 8 million German immigrants and 4.5 million Irish supported the Central Powers.

• President Wilson’s cabinet however….

Propaganda

• Information designed to influence opinion• Britain cut the transatlantic cable so that only

British reports of the war got through

• Claimed: Germans used battlefield corpses to make fertilizer and soap

Propaganda

U-Boats • German word “Unterseeboot”

• Germany announced that they would sink any shop in the waters around Britain

• A German sub sank the “Lusitania” killing 1,200 passengers including 128 Americans.

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Lusitania – good day

The Lusitania – bad day

The Zimmermann Telegram• Arthur Zimmermann cabled

the German ambassador in Mexico

• He proposed that Mexico ally itself with Germany in the event of a US war with Germany.

• He said Mexico could regain its “lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona”

Germany resumes sub warfare• Germans believed they could starve Britain out of the

war• They sank 6 American merchant ships• On April 2, 1917 President Wilson asked Congress for

a declaration of War

Torpedo hits a merchant ship