Chapter 33

THE GREAT WAR

NOT A SUMMER WAR • Expectations for a brief, glorious war

• Battle of the Marne demonstrated a clear change in warfare

• Western Front

• Trench warfare

• Italy switched sides

• Four year stalemate

NEW TECHNOLOGY

• Machine guns

• Barbed wire

• Airplanes

• Poison gas

• Tanks

• U-boats

• Zeppelins

• Old techniques remained, increased casualties

• No Man’s Land

EASTERN EUROPE• Battle lines more fluid

• GER gained SE Europe

• RUS pressed into northern/central Europe, pushed back by 1915

• Phenomenal casualties (1.7 m killed, 76% of forces were casualties)

TOTAL WAR• A nation had to be destroyed for a war to be won

• Increased power of government

• Economic controls – planning boards, rationing

• Censorship, propaganda, restriction of liberties

• Increased taxes

• Draft, longer terms of service as war dragged on

• Increased number of women in work place, serious (though far from complete) changes in attitudes

CONFLICT OUTSIDE OF EUROPE• Colonies dragged into the war

• Japan – 8/15/1914 – took over German colonial possessions in Asia

• 21 Demands – desire to make China a Japanese protectorate

• Attempts to gain German colonies in Africa was much more costly

• Ottoman Empire – strategic location

• Gallipoli – massive Allied failure – 250,000 casualties

• Increased national identities

• Arab revolts weakened Empire (Lawrence of Arabia)

• Armenian Massacre – 1915-1917

RUSSIA• war exacerbated problems that already existed

• Losses in war, troop mutinies, Czar abdicated in 1917

• Power struggle between provisional government and Petrograd Soviet

• Many popular reforms

• Failed to end war or redistribute land

• VI Lenin (1870-1924)

• Recognized support for the Germans

• Overthrew provisional government – Nov. 1917

• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk – March 3, 1918

US INVOLVEMENT• Slow change of US public opinion

• Economic involvement with Allies

• Submarine warfare

• Lusitania (two years prior to declaration of war)

• April 6th, 1917 – Declaration of War against Germany

• Wilson “to make the world safe for democracy”

• Helped break stalemate

ANGST ON THE HOME FRONT• Blockades led to shortages

• Soldiers mutinied on both sides

• 1918 – last German offensive

• Running out of money, materials, and people

• Revolts at home, kaiser abdicated

• Weimar Republic declared

SURRENDER• Bulgaria – Sept 30, 1918

• Ottoman Empire – Oct. 20, 1918 – armistice

• Austria-Hungary – Nov. 4, 1918

• Germany – Nov. 11, 1918

AFTER THE WAR • 15 million dead

• 20 million wounded

• Millions died after the war due to deprivation and hardship

• Spanish influenza –

• 20 million dead

• Truly a pandemic