chapter photo chapter transparency section 1 dyk in 1919, the german government was allowed to...

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In 1919, the German government was allowed to submit a counterproposal to the Treaty of Versailles. In it the Germans agreed to many of the terms including reparations, territorial adjustments, and reduction of military. However, the counterproposal said that for Germany to sign the treaty as it stood, the country would be signing its own death warrant. It asked that a neutral inquiry into the question of responsibility for the war be held, one that would inspect the archives of all the nations that had fought. The counterproposal was rejected almost entirely.


A. Liberals during the first half of the 1800s hoped that the formation of European nation/states would lead to peace. However, the imperialist states that emerged during the second half of the 1800s became highly competitive over trade and colonies.

I. Nationalism and the System of Alliances (pages 422–423)

B. Two main alliances divided Europe: The Triple Alliance (1882) was made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; and the Triple Entente (1907) was made up of France, Great Britain, and Russia.


C. During the early 1900s, several crises erupted, particularly in the Balkans, which created a great deal of anger and tension between the nations of the two alliances. Each nation was willing to go to war to preserve its power.

D. European ethnic groups, such as Slavs in the Balkans and the Irish in the British Empire, dreamed of creating their own national states, which also increased tensions in Europe.



E. Another source of strife in Europe was dissent within nations. As Socialist labor movements became more powerful, they used strikes to achieve their goals, which led to unrest.

F. Conservative national leaders feared that revolutions would break out. Some historians believe that these leaders may have been willing to go to war in order to suppress internal dissent.



G. After 1900 there was a huge increase in the size of European armies, which increased tensions among nations.

H. The two sides thought that the war would be quick and decisive.

I. As militarism, or the aggressive preparation for war grew, so did the influence of military leaders. Because military leaders insisted that their plans could not be changed, political leaders were forced to make decisions based on military instead of political reasons.



A. While militarism, nationalism, and the desire to control internal dissent all had a part in starting World War I, the outbreak of fighting stemmed directly from events in the Balkans in 1914.

B. States in southeastern Europe had long struggled for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Russia and Austria-Hungary competed for control of these new states. In 1914, Serbia wanted to form a large Slavic state in the Balkans. Serbia was supported by Russia and opposed by Austria-Hungary.

II. The Outbreak of War: Summer 1914 (pages

424–425)


C. Many Europeans were afraid that this conflict in the Balkans would lead to war.

D. In June of 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were killed by the Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip in the city of Sarajevo. The Siberian terrorists wanted Bosnia to become independent from Austria-Hungary.


424–425)

Assassination at Sarajevo


E. The Austro-Hungarian government wanted to declare war on Serbia but was worried that Russian would come to Serbia’s aid. Austrian leaders asked for help from its German allies. Emperor William II agreed to give Germany’s full support. In July, 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.


424–425)

F. Russia responded by supporting Serbia. Czar Nicholas II ordered partial and then full mobilization of the Russian army. Austria-Hungary and Germany considered the mobilizations acts of war.


G. The Germans warned the Russians to halt mobilization, and the Russians refused. Germany then declared war on Russia on August 1. Because Russia and France were allies, Germany had planned its strategy against Russia and France, which was to defeat France first and then attack Russia with full force. This plan, designed by General Alfred von Schlieffen, was called the Schlieffen Plan. Germany declared war on France on August 3.


424–425)


H. The Germans demanded that Belgium—a neutral country—allow German armies to pass through on the way to France. This action led Britain, who was allied with France and Russia, to declare war on Germany. By August 4, World War I had begun.


424–425)

German officer reading the declaration of war in the streets of Berlin


When President Woodrow Wilson declared war in 1917, he called it the “war to end all wars” and said that the United States would fight to “make the world safe for democracy.” The government asked for volunteers, saying it needed a million men. However, public support was not as strong as the government would have liked. In the first six weeks after war was declared, about 70,000 men volunteered, which led Congress to start the draft.


A. The events of August 1914 shattered two previously held ideas: that war was not worth fighting and that diplomats could prevent war.

B. Government propaganda—ideas spread to influence public opinion—had stirred up national hatreds before the war. When the war began, propaganda was used to urge people to defend their own country. The majority of people thought their country’s cause was just.

I. 1914 to 1915: Illusions and Stalemate (pages

431–432)


C. All European wars since 1815 had only lasted a few weeks. In August, 1914, most people thought the war would be over by Christmas.


431–432)

Troops going to war


D. On the Western Front, Germany swept through Belgium into northern France and was stopped a short distance from Paris at the First Battle of the Marne. The Western Front turned into a stalemate, with neither side able to push the other out of the system of trench warfare they had begun. The trenches stretched from the English Channel nearly to the Swiss border. For four years both sides remained in almost the same positions.


431–432)


E. On the Eastern Front, the war was far more mobile. The Russian army moved into eastern Germany but was defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of Masurian Lakes, making Russia no longer a threat to invade Germany. The Russians defeated Austria-Hungary and dislodged them from Serbia. The Italians, who had been allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, broke their alliance in 1915 and attacked Austria-Hungary. The Germans came to the aid of the Austrians and together they defeated the Russians in several battles and drove them back. About 2.5 million Russians had been killed, captured, or wounded. The Russians were almost out of the war. After defeating Serbia, Germany turned its attention back to the Western Front.


431–432)


A. The trenches on the Western Front included massive tangles of barbed wire, machinegun nests, gun batteries, and heavy artillery. The soldiers lived in holes in the ground. The territory between the two sides was called no-man’s-land.

B. Military leaders did not know how to fight trench warfare. They were used to mobile battles. The only plan they could devise was to order masses of soldiers to attack the other side and try to break through.

II. 1916 to 1917: The Great Slaughter (pages

432–433)


C. Each side tried this tactic. They would begin with heavy artillery and then send in thousands of troops. The men who attacked were completely exposed to machine-gun fire. Millions of young men died in these attacks and no breakthrough came. At Verdun, France, in 1916, 700,000 men were killed in 10 months. World War I had become a war of attrition, where each side tried to wear the other down.


432–433)


D. Airplanes for war were used for the first time in World War I. By the end of 1915, airplanes spotted enemy positions from the air. Later they attacked ground targets. In time, machine guns were mounted on airplanes and they fought each other for control of the air.

E. The Germans used their giant gas-filled airships to bomb points in Britain, but stopped when the British realized that they could easily shoot down the airships.


432–433)


F. Because the war in the trenches was bogged down, both sides tried to get new allies and to widen the war. In November, 1914, Russia, Great Britain, and France (the Allies) declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In 1915, they tried to open a Balkan front by attacking Gallipoli, near Constantinople. Then Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers). The Allies withdrew from Gallipoli after a disastrous campaign.


432–433)


G. Italy opened up a front against Austria-Hungary on the side of the Allies.

H. In 1918, British forces from Egypt defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. They used troops from Australia, India, and New Zealand.

I. The Allies seized German colonies in the rest of the world. Japan, an ally of Britain, seized German-held islands in the Pacific Ocean.


432–433)


A. The United States tried to stay neutral in the first years of World War I. This became more difficult as the war dragged on.

B. The naval war between Britain and Germany became the reason why the United States joined the war. In order to keep supplies from reaching their enemies, each country enforced a naval blockade of the other. German submarines sank both military and civilian ships, including passenger ships. This practice was called unrestricted submarine warfare.

III. Entry of the United States (pages 434–435)


C. In 1915, the Germans sank the British ship Lusitania, killing 1,100 civilians and causing strong protests from the American government. The Germans stopped unrestricted submarine warfare for some time until German naval officers such as Admiral Holtzendorff convinced the emperor to resume the practice.



D. The Germans did not think that the United States would enter the war before the British were starved. However, in April 1917, the United States responded to unrestricted submarine warfare by declaring war on Germany. Though large numbers of American troops did not arrive until 1918, the Allies were given a powerful psychological boost as well as money and supplies.



A. World War I became a total war that required a complete mobilization of people and resources. It demanded the total commitment of the countries involved, soldiers and civilians alike. The war had an enormous impact on everyone’s life.

IV.The Homefront: The Impact of Total War (pages 435–

437)

In December 1915, these Italian troops posed for a camera as they rested in camp.


B. As the war dragged on, governments had to increase their powers in order to obtain the manpower and supplies they needed. Millions of men were drafted into the military. Governments set up planned economies, which included economic controls, food and material rationing, regulated transportation, and controls on imports and exports.


437)


C. Governments and leaders such as U.S. president Woodrow Wilson saw all citizens as part of the war effort.

D. As the casualties mounted in the war, public support for the war waned. Authoritarian governments used force to keep people working. Other governments passed new laws to severely restrict dissent, exercised increased control of news sources, and tried to keep morale up with new propaganda techniques.


437)


E. Women assumed new roles during World War I, taking over jobs previously held only by men, including factory and trucking jobs. These changes were generally seen as temporary, lasting only while men were away fighting the war. One positive result of women’s role in the war was that in Germany,

Austria, and the United States they were given the right to vote not long after the war ended. Women in Britain were given the right to vote in 1918 before the end of the war.


437)

British women in a munitions factory


Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov (V.I. Lenin) was born in 1870 to a middle-class family. He was educated and became a lawyer. In 1887, his older brother was executed by the czarist police for planning to assassinate the czar. This event turned Lenin into a revolutionary, and he dedicated his life to overthrowing the czar.


A. Due to a lack of experienced military leaders and technology, Russia was unprepared for World War I. The Russian army was poorly trained and equipped and suffered terrible losses.

B. By 1917, the Russian will to continue fighting in the war had disappeared.

I. Background to Revolution (pages 441–443)


C. Czar Nicholas II relied on his army and government to keep him in power. His wife Alexandra cut him off from events. She was strongly influenced by Grigori Rasputin, who claimed to be a holy man. Though he had no military experience, Czar Nicholas II insisted on commanding the army in the field and was away from the capital. In his absence, Alexandra made important decisions with the help of Rasputin.



D. The Russian people became increasingly upset with the czar and his wife due to military and economic disasters. Conservatives wanted to save the deteriorating situation and assassinated Rasputin late in 1916. However, this did not save the monarchy.

E. In March 1917, working-class women led a series of strikes in the capital city of Petrograd. They were upset about bread shortages and rationing. They called a general strike that shut down all the factories.



F. Alexandra reported the situation to Nicholas, describing the demonstrators as hooligans. Nicholas responded by ordering troops to break up the crowds with force. However, many soldiers refused to shoot and joined the demonstrators. On March 12, the Duma, or legislature, met and established a provisional government. The government then urged the czar to step down, which he did.



G. The provisional government was headed by Alexander Kerensky and decided to continue fighting the war. This was a grave mistake, as it upset workers and peasants who wanted to end the years of fighting.

H. The government was also challenged by the soviets—councils representing workers and soldiers—who came to play an important role in Russian politics. Soviets sprang up around the country, and were mostly made up of socialists.



A. The Bolsheviks were a small faction of a Marxist party. They were led by V.I. Lenin, and were dedicated to a violent revolution to overthrow the capitalist system.

B. Lenin lived in Switzerland between 1900 and 1917. When the provisional government was formed, he went to Russia hoping that the Bolsheviks could seize power. German military leaders helped him travel to Russia in an attempt to create disorder.

II. The Rise of Lenin and the Bolsheviks (pages 443–

444)


C. Lenin believed that the Bolsheviks should try to gain control of the soviets. He saw the soviets as groups already in place that could help overthrow the provisional government.

D. The Bolsheviks promised to end the war, redistribute land to the peasants, transfer control of factories and industries from capitalists to the workers, and transfer government power to the soviets.


444)


E. Three slogans summed up the Bolshevik program: “Peace, Land, Bread,” “Worker Control of Production,” and “All Power to the Soviets.”

F. By the end of October, 1917, the Bolsheviks had 240,000 members and held majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets. On November 6, the Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace and the provisional government collapsed.


444)


G. Lenin turned over power to the Congress of Soviets, which represented soviets throughout Russia; but held on to the real power in a Council of People’s Commissars, which he ran.

H. The Bolsheviks renamed themselves the Communists. In March of 1918, Lenin ended the war with Germany, giving up a lot of territory including eastern Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces. He believed that these territories would eventually return to Russia as the socialist revolution spread through Europe.


444)


A. Soon after the Communists took power, civil war broke out in Russia. Many people were opposed to the Communists, including groups loyal to the czar, liberals, and anti-Leninist socialists. They were aided by the Allies, who gave them troops and supplies, hoping Russia would rejoin the war.

B. The Communist (Red) Army fought in many places between 1918 and 1921. The opposing, or White, forces first attacked from Siberia in the east. Other attacks came from the Ukraine and the Baltic regions.

III. Civil War in Russia (page 444)


C. By 1920, the Red Army had defeated most of the White forces. The Communists then gained control over Georgia, Russian Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

D. The royal family was captured by the Communists and moved to a mining town in the Urals, where they were eventually killed.

III. Civil War in Russia (page 444)


A. The Communists won the civil war in part because they had an excellent army. As commissar of war, Leon Trotsky had brilliantly organized the army and instituted rigid discipline.

B. The opposition to the Communists was not unified and was torn by political differences and mistrust. They lacked a common goal. Some wanted to restore the czar. Others wanted a more democratic government.

IV.Triumph of the Communists (pages 445–446)


C. The Communists had a strong sense of purpose and conviction. They were also able to put their ideals to work in practical ways, for example by controlling banks, farms, and industries to serve the Communist war effort, a policy known as war communism.

D. The Communists also used revolutionary terror to further their goals. The Cheka, or secret police, sought out anyone who opposed the Communists and created an atmosphere of fear among the people.



E. When the Allies sent troops to oppose the Communists, the Communists used this act to appeal to Russian patriotism. They asked Russians to join with them in fighting foreign attempts to control the nation.

F. By 1921, the Communists had complete control of Russia. The country had become a centralized state dominated by a single party. Because of the role of the Allies in the civil war, the Communists mistrusted them and remained hostile.



The 1919 Treaty of Versailles demanded that Germany pay $5 billion in reparations for damages caused by the war. In 1921, Germany had paid nearly half the amount. However, the reparations committee met and decided that Germany should pay a total of $32.5 billion by 1963, an amount that many experts agreed could cause the German people to starve.


A. During 1917, the Allies had been defeated in their offensives on the Western Front, and the Russians had withdrawn from the war. The Central Powers appeared to have the advantage.

B. The German military official Erich von Ludendorff decided to take a military gamble. In March 1918, the Germans launched a large offensive on the Western Front and came to within 50 miles of Paris. The Germans were stopped at the Second Battle of the Marne by French, Moroccan, and American troops and hundreds of tanks.

I. The Last Year of the War (pages 448–449)


C. In 1918, the addition of more than 2 million American troops helped the Allies begin to advance toward Germany. By the end of September, General Ludendorff told German leaders that the war was lost.

D. The Allies were not willing to negotiate with the German government under Emperor William II. The German people were angry and exhausted by the war. In spite of attempted government reforms, German workers and soldiers in towns such as Kiel revolted and set up their own councils. On November 9, William II left the country.



E. The German Social Democratic party, led by Friedrich Ebert, declared that Germany would become a democratic republic. On November 11, the new German government signed an armistice with the Allies that ended the war.

F. In December 1918, a group of radical socialists formed the German Communist Party and then tried to seize power. They were defeated by the new government, which was backed by the army. The revolutionary leaders were killed.



G. The attempt by the Communists to take over the government left many middle-class Germans deeply afraid of communism.

H. At the end of the war, ethnic groups in Austria-Hungary sought independence. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated into the independent republics of Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia and the monarchial state of Yugoslavia. National rivalries in the region would weaken eastern Europe for years to come.



A. In January 1919, representatives of the Allied nations met in Paris to make a final settlement of the war.

B. President Woodrow Wilson outlined his “Fourteen Points,” with which he intended to create a lasting peace. The points included proposals for open treaty negotiations, reducing military strength, and ensuring self-determination, or the right of each people to have its own nation. Wilson proposed a new world order based on democracy and cooperation among nations. He suggested creating an association of nations to guarantee political independence for all countries.

II. The Peace Settlements (pages 449–453)


C. The Paris Peace Conference was complicated by many factors. Secret treaties had been made before the war that promised territories to certain nations. National interests created problems as well. For example, the British under Prime Minister David Lloyd George wanted to make the Germans pay for the war.



D. Led by Georges Clemenceau, the French wanted to insure national security. They sought to do this by stripping Germany of all weapons, having them make huge payments, called reparations, and creating a buffer state between Germany and France in the German Rhineland.

E. The United States, Britain, and France, known as the Big Three, made most of the important decisions at the Paris Peace Conference. Germany was not included. Russia was in a civil war and could not attend, and Italy was not given a large role.



F. The Big Three argued about many points. Wilson wanted to create a League of Nations to be an international peacekeeping organization. The conference accepted his proposal. In return he agreed to territorial settlements that were not consistent with his idea of self-determination. The French gave up their wish for a Rhineland buffer state and accepted a defensive alliance with Britain and the United States to guarantee future security against Germany.



G. The Treaty of Versailles was the final peace settlement of World War I. It was actually five separate treaties with the defeated nations: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The treaty declared that the Germans were guilty of starting the war. It ordered Germany to pay reparations for all damages suffered by the Allies.



H. The treaty required Germany to greatly reduce its military forces and return the territories of Alsace and Lorraine to France. Sections of eastern Germany became part of a new Polish state. German land on both sides of the Rhine was turned into a demilitarized zone to prevent future aggression toward France.


I. The German government accepted the peace terms because it had no choice. To refuse would mean to go back to war. However the treaty outraged and angered the German people, who felt the Treaty of Versailles was a harsh and unfair peace.


J. Eastern Europe was greatly changed as a result of the war and the peace treaties. The Russians and Germans lost much territory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was gone. New nation-states emerged, including Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Lands in the Balkans changed hands as Romania received territory from Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Yugoslavia was formed, which included Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.



K. Though the Paris Peace Conference was supposedly guided by the principle of self-determination, the mix of peoples in eastern Europe made this very difficult and many compromises were made. As a result, almost every eastern European state included ethnic minorities. For example, there were Germans in Poland and Hungarians in Romania. These ethnic mixes would lead to conflicts in later years.



L. The peace treaty also broke up the Ottoman Empire. In return for Arab support, the Allies had promised Arab states within the Ottoman Empire that they would be independent after the war. France and Britain changed their minds and took over control of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine. Because Wilson opposed new colonial acquisitions, these acquisitions were called mandates. Under the mandate system, a country controlled another as a mandate on behalf of the League of Nations, but did not officially own the territory.



M. World War I undermined the previously held idea of human progress. Entire populations had slaughtered each other in unprecedented ways. The devastation of the war also opened the door to revolutions and further instability.



Chapter Summary

The outline below shows four themes of the chapter.


The Battle of the Somme

chapter photo chapter transparency section 1 dyk in 1919, the german government was allowed to...

Documents

system of alliances

outbreak of war

chapter transparency

chapter photo slide

main alliances

political leaders

influence of military

starting world war