CASE STUDY #1WWI

REMEMBER: You may get a question about a WAR or a TOTAL WAR

WWI IZ A TOTAL WAR: HOW SO?Obviously the WHOLE WORLD was involved, not just 1 or 2

countries

A war that used ALL of a country’s Military aspects: The Draft A war that used ALL of a country’s Political aspects: The Draft

and Woodrow Wilson making criticizing the draft illegal. A war that used ALL of a country’s Economic aspects: Coca

Cola started making bullets an General Motors stared making tanks

A war that used ALL of a country’s Social aspects: Women replaced men in the workforce

Territory change was a MAJOR aim of the campaign. - Countries like Germany wanted ‘Total Victory’ not just

some small piece of land

Weapons free for all: biological and chemical Civilians were shot and killed : WWI killed about 20,000,000

civilians, women and children1. If you were a civilian…..TOO BAD!!!! You got DEAD too!2. This never really happened before. Previous wars had these

weird ‘rules of war’ where Officers wouldn’t get killed and civilians like women and children DEFINITELY didn’t get killed. All that is thrown out with WWI

In fact, out all the casualties of WWI (30 million), over 25% were women, children and other civilians.

By the way, everything ABOVE is also true for WWII.

WORLD WAR ONEStarted in 1914Ended in 1917

BAD GUYS: THE CENTRAL POWERSAustro-Hungarian Empire (Austria, Hungary and some of

Eastern Europe)Germany

Italy (then they switched sides)The Ottoman Empire-today Turkey

GOOD GUYS: THE TRIPLE ENTENTEFRANCE RUSSIA

THE U.S. (Eventually!)

CASUALTIES8.5 MILLION SOLDIERS KILLED20 MILLION CIVILIANS KILLED

TOTAL: 30,000,000 DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (That’s a lot) WWII had 60 million killed.

CAUSES: M.A.I.N.1. MILITARISM2. ALLIANCES

3. IMPERIALISM (Africa)4. NATIONALISM

And then of course, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was the ‘spark that lit the powder keg’

CONSEQUENCES- The Great Depression

- The Treaty of Versailles- The League of Nations

- Women get the right to vote in 1920- Russia becomes the Soviet Union in 1917 with Vladimir Lenin

- The Ottoman Empire becomes Turkey and Mr. Shtrakhman visits in September.

MAIN: MILITARISM1. THIS MEANS Europe was in the middle of an ARMS RACE. It used to be that England was the strongest country in the world. By 1870, however, good ol’ Germany surpassed them in industrial capacity. This scared England to death and the Frenchies already hated the Germans. This started a continent wide Arms Race.

**Between 1870-1914 arms spending in all of Europe rose 300%!!!!!!

England also had the best navy in the word for 300 years. Ze Germans then invent the U-Boat, however, and turn the tides.

Germany was now THE MAN!!!!!! Like me

And what do they make today: Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porshe, Audi and Volkswagon

A. England responds to the U-Boat threat by building The Dreadnought

The DREADNOUGHT was the very first BATTLESHIP. In some places its steel was 11” THICK!

Heavy gunned: 12 inch 190 caliber weapons. That means its bullets were 9 INCLES LONG!!

Could fire 4000 yards. That’s 40 FOOTBALL FIELDS!! Germany responds by building 17 ships in 7 years to meet the British

navy head on. England then build 18 more in 1909

THE U-BOAT

(Unterseeboot: German for…you get it.)

England breaks Germany’s U-Boat code We develop sonar and depth charges (they go BOOM underwater!) U-Boats sink the USS Lusitania bringing America into the war England starts sending battleships with their Merchant Ships

THE NAVAL RACE IS IN FULL SWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAT ABOUT LAND-BASED WEAPONS

A. ZE GERMANS THEN INVENT ‘BIG BERTHA’ : A land based mortar rocket that could hurl a 4000 pound 1 ½ foot projectile almost 10 miles!!!!!!!!!! **That’s like tossing Jordyn Markhoff or Arpana all the way to Sawgrass!!

** This is the gun they use in Sherlock Holmes 2 with Robert Downey Jr.

2 weeks ago, 11 Afghan children found an un-exploded artillery shell near a village, touched it, and ……………………

B. The Germans make the best machine gun on the planet, capable of firing two bullets per second! (The US now has a gun thatcan fire 1 MILLION ROUNDS PER MINUTE. How many is that per second oh math illiterates?)

Fun Fact: So many bullets grazed Hitler during WWI that he thought god must be on his side. Obviously!

C. The Flamethrower!

D. The tank!

Actually, tanks were not as effective as people thought they were gonna be)A. They were vulnerable to artilleryB. They were slow and broke down a lotC. The conditions inside were awful, regularly choking the drivers to death!

E. Airplanes (Hitler will be the 1st to see how important airplanes would really be in WWII)

F. The Zeppelin. The problem is that it dropped bombs indiscriminately. That is, on CIVILIAN populations.

**P.S. Led Zeppelin is the best rock band ever!!!

G. CHEMICAL WARFARE

WWI used TEAR GAS, MUSTARD GAS, CHLORINE CLOUDS AND PHOSGENE

Technically the use of Chemical Warfare violate 2 treaties:1. The 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and 2. The 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.

Mustard gas and Chlorine are especially nasty chemicals.

A) Mustard Gas: First, red spots would form on your skin. Then they would turn into painful blisters. Eventually these blisters would block your airway and slowly suffocate you. And if civilians like women or children got in the way well, too bad!

B) Chlorine: Chlorine would come as a huge green cloud. If you came into contact with it your lungs would fill with hydrochloric acid.

Several problems with the use of chemical warfare:1. If the wind changes you wind up gassing yourself. Nice!2. The gas doesn’t really go anywhere for a while so what are you gonna do with the area you just took over.3. Eventually WWI scientists invent and issue GAS MASKS.

Main Idea: So MILITARISM is really a mechanized and brutal Arms Race

MAIN: ALLIANCES EVERY COUNTRY HAD AN ALLIANCE WITH OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

A. GERMANY FORMED AN ALLIANCE WITH THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE (IN AUSTRIA THEY SPEAK GERMAN BUT DRINK AUSTRIAN BEER)

B. FRANCE SIGNED AN ALLIANCE WITH RUSSIAC. ENGLAND WAS FRIENDS WITH FRANCE (OBVIOUSLY)D. AND GERMANY WAS FRIENDS WITH ITALYE. AMERICA IS NEUTRAL. FOR NOW……… When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is shot in the headThe dominoes start falling Ze Germans declare war on Russia France declares war on Germany England is friends with France

Boom! We get WWI

Germany’s WHOLE WWI strategy was based on something called the Schlieffen Plan, named after Count Alfred Von Schlieffen (related to Count Dracula). It stated that if Germany could defeat France in a week it could then turn its attention to Russia since it would take Russia MONTHS to get ready (being the drunk and primitive country that they were). It wanted, most of all, to avoid a 2-FRONT WAR. The same ting Hitler got himself into when he invaded Russia and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

The Schlieffen Plan was wrong for 2 reasons:1. You CANT defeat France in a week (though Hitler later did).

Trench Warfare during WWI made a QUICK VICTORY IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

2. As soon as the Serbian dude assassinated the Archduke, Russia started MOBILIZING FOR WAR. This meant that as soon as Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked France, Russia would pounce.

This, ze Germans were NOT ready for. They thought they could attack France and THEN deal with Russia. A Serb (Slavic) shooting the Archduke in the head changed all that.

Bismarck’s DREADED 2-Front War was about to get a whole lot worse. Russia from the right, America, France and England from the left!

MAIN: NATIONALISMTHE LOVE OF YOUR COUNTRY MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE’S. DO YOU

KNOW WHAT SHTRAKMANIZM IS?

GERMANY HATES THE FRENCH AND THE FRENCH HATE ZE GERMANS

RUSSIA HATES THE AUSTRO- HUNGARIAN EMPIRE

If u look at a map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire you can see that it includes a lot of different people who are really SLAVS and who don’t consider themselves Austrian or Hungarian:1. Ukranians2. The Romanians3. The Czechoslovakians4. The Serbs5. The Croats (I also visited Croatia in September)6. Polish people

Guess what, these are SLAVIC PEOPLES, who are Eastern Orthodox Christian and not Catholic and who love Russia more than anyone else. That means the Russian will constantly looking for ways to free them, and they will always be looking at ways to get free.

And then, the guy who assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a SLAVIC Serbian Nationalist who wants independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Russia has his back.

AMERICA

America does not get into the war until the stupid Germans do 2 things:1. Sink a ship called the USS Lusitania with about 1000 US civilians on it2. Send a telegram to Mexico promising the Mexicans California, Arizona and

New Mexico if they help the Germans get rid of us. We intercept this ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM and it, uh, upsets us!

When the Japanese were STUPID enough to bomb Pearl Harbor during WWII, a Japanese Admiral famously said “All we have done is awoken a sleeping giant!” Same thing here!

1. The Lusitania: The Lusitania was a passenger ship heading for England with about 1000 US citizens on board for a trip to jolly old England.

Ze Germans argued that it was a ship actually carrying weapons headed for England, and this was effectively an act of war on the part of the United States. But Woodrow Wilson argued it was a leisurely passenger vessel and nothing more.

When it was 1 hour away from England’s shores Germany sunk it with a U-Boat. It was all the reason Wilson needed for WAR!!!

Guess what: In 2014, we discovered it actually DID have weapons bound for the UK, down below. Doesn’t matter now, does it??!!

Of course, by the time America joined the war in 1917, we had lost Russia to Communism, and about 25,000,000 Europeans lay dead. Late to the party but the life of the party as usual! Just like….ME!

TOTAL WAR: POOR OL’ CIVILIANS R TARGETED

1. The Lusitania attack targeted civilians.2. Chlorine and Mustard gas targeted civilians3. The Zeppelin targeted civilians

4. The British Blockade:

It’s true that German U-Boats patrolled the waters around Great Britain. But England’s Navy was the largest and best equipped. Well, Germany got a lot of its food and supplies from ships all around the world. England decided to blockade them. The problems with this strategy is that if you’re not letting food in you’re not just starving the troops, you’re starving the women and children too.

The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 claimed that 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade up until the end of December 1918

In fact, out all the casualties of WWI (40 million), over 25% were women, children and other civilians.

MAIN: IMPERIALISM: IN THE 1800’S AND 1900’S EVERY COUNTRY IN EUROPE IS TRYING TO TAKE

OVER AFRICA AND GET HER NATURAL RESOURCES.

AFRICA IS QUITE THE PRIZE.

Africa has the following NATURAL RESOURCES:1. Gold2. Diamonds3. Platinum4. Oil5. Salt6. Palm Oil7. Ivory from elephants8. Guano: bat crap (good for fuel or to put on your cereal.)9. Slavery is illegal at this point (The US Civil War was 1860-1865)

Europe split Africa up like a pie during THE BERLIN CONFERENCE OF 1884 I mean, they all got together and just AGREED how to divide up the

whole continent “YOU GET THIS PART FRANCE, AND I’LL TAKE THIS PART GERMANY, IS

THAT COOL WITH YOU ITALY?!” In this way, Europe tried to avoid WAR!!!!!!!!!!!! The problem is that Germany will mess all this up when their Kaiser

(that’s their Shtrakhman), named Wilhelm II, decides to play hardball with Africa:

You see, the most famous man in Germany, besides that little dude with the mustache, is a man named Otto Von Bismarck; he is the man who UNITED all the German states into ONE country.

Germany has always been a collection of independent states like BAVARIA, HAMBURG, SAXONY ETC. The best beer comes from…..Munich in Bavaria. Mercedes is made in Stuttgart in the Province of Baden-Wurtenberg. In 1871, Otto UNIFIES them.

Otto is not stupid, or aggressive, when it comes to Africa, but when he dies and the new Kaiser comes on board…he puts Africa in play!

***Germany wants to now TAKE all French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies in Africa and make one big country-Yay!

It would be called MITTELAFRIKA, which means…..”MIDDLE AFRICA” in Deutsche! This messes up the delicate

BALANCE OF POWER in Europe!

KEY VOCABULARY TERMSTRENCH WARFARE: SOLDIERS DIG TRENCHES AND STAY THERE FOR WEEKS. IF AN ARMY MOVED TEN FEET IN A DAY IT WAS CONSIDERED A HUGE SUCCESS.

**This is also why WWI didn’t go anywhere for YEARS. No army could move. It was also why Germany couldn’t defeat France in a couple of weeks like County Shifty wanted.

CONDITIONS WERE SO BAD SOLDIERS HAD TO USE URINE TO LUBRICATE THEIR GUNS BECAUSE WATER WAS SO SCARCE. AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ABOUT THE LICE! GO COMB YOUR HAIR! THE WESTERN FRONT: 300 MILES OF TRENCHES FROM SCANDINAVIA TO SWITZERLAND. This was basically all in France and why in Framce WWI is a MUCH bigger deal then here in America.

Fun Fact: The oldest WWI veteran died last year. He was 108 years old and he died a pacifist who saw the horrors of war and wished for men to NEVER repeat them. But alas, HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF!

PART IITHE STUFF ABOVE WILL GET YOU A 4. THE STUFF

BELOW, A 6 OR A 7. GOOD LUCK!

QUESTION: WHY DOES FRANCE HATE GERMANY?ANSWER: CUZ GERMANY STOLE A PICTURESQUE PIECE OF LAND CALLED ALSACE-LORRAINE IN THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAS OF 1871!

QUESTION: WHY DOES THE UK HATE GERMANY?ANSWER: CUZ THEY OUTPACED THEM IN INDUSTRIALIZATION AND MILITATY HARDWARE!

1. OK, so you know that In 1871, Otto von Bismarck unifies all of Germany.

2. Well, A now-powerful Germany then attacks yellow-belly France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and gets the beautiful territory of Alsace Lorraine.

(It’s a beautiful area with canals and castles and French bread galore (baguettes)!)

My father used to say about German workmanship: “All the screws on their products HAD to face the same direction!”

The French are pissed, and remember, the UK is afraid of Germany’s rapid industrialization. France wants an alliance with the UK! Germany should be careful here.

SO FAR: ENGLAND AND FRANCE VS. GERMANY AND RUSSIA NOT FAR BEHIND

THE TIMELINE OF THE ARCHDUKE ASSASSINATION- A Serbian Nationalist named Gavrilo Prinzip takes the shot.

*Serbia is part of Yugoslavia and a SLAVIC people that Russia vows to protect. They are Eastern Orthodox Christian and DO NOT believe in the Pope! Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Polish are VERY close to Russian. I can UNDERSTAND them but I can’t speak them. Kind of like most of you guys with English.

- He is part of the BLACK HAND movement but there is NO PROOF that he has actual ties to the Serbian Government so any war would kind of be ILLEGAL!!!!! It’s terrorism then, NOT WAR!!!

- Austria and Hungary didn’t care. They want blood and they see their chance.- At this point Germany should have chilled them out. They didn’t!- Franz Joseph I was the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. He made all these demands of Serbia after the assassination and fully expected them to say NO!!. But they surprised EVERYONE, and in an effort to avoid war said “Yes!!!” 1. Austro-Hungary should have chilled out 2. Germany should have

chilled them out!

- Everyone was like “Ah, war has been avoided.”

- Nope! Old Franz and the Austro-Hungarian Empire bombed the city of Belgrade in Serbia anyway. Naughty, naughty. Don’t you know this will upset ze Russkies?- In response: Russia mobilized all their forces JUST IN CASE. Count Dracula thought it would take them 6 weeks, BUT THEY STARTED EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

- The Schlieffen Plan mandated that Germany quickly attack France before Russia gets going. But Russia did not declare war, they JUST MOBILIZED! - So Germany attacks France and Germany declares war on Russia. Nice! Well, England is gonna jump in too and now we have a PARTY!

CONSEQUENCESCONSEQUENCES

- The Great Depression and The Treaty of Versailles- The League of Nations

- Women get the right to vote in 1920- Russia becomes the Soviet Union in 1917 with Vladimir Lenin

The Great Depression AND the Treaty of Versailles work TOGETHER to allow Hitler to take over. That’s because a

country in poverty is a country in DANGER.

1. THE TREATY OF VERSAILLE (ALL OF THE FOLLOWING WERE CONDITIONS OF THE TREATY)

The thing about the Treaty of Versaille is that it blamed Germany for EVERYTHING. It contained what was known as the War Guilt Clause, which made ze Germans do the following:

1. Made Germany pay 6600 million dollars (That’s 6.6 billion dollars math nerds!) This PLUS the Great Depression=HITLER

2. Germany would also no longer be allowed to have the following; submarines, an Air-Force, armoured cars, or tanks.3. Also, they could only keep 100,000 soldiers TOTAL!4. We take all of Germany’s African and East Asian colonies away (Awww!) No more MITTLELAND and strudel for the Nigerians!

5. Of course, Germany must immediately disarm the area between Germany and France, known as the RHINELAND.

It will be this RHINELAND that Germany will bring troops into in defiance of the League of Nations and the rest of Europe. This will be the 1st step of WWII!

6. Oh, and Germany, you are NOT allowed to join with Austria (The Anschluss), which, of course, Hitler does in 1939. Do you see how WWI and WWII are connected in many different ways?

7. ALSO, The Treaty takes some German land and gives it to Czechoslovakia. This is known as the SUDETENLAND. The problem is that most of the people who live there speak German, not Czech. Germany will want it back during WWII. Then they will simply TAKE the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939!

8. Chamberlain will LET HIM. This is known as appeasement. When Hitler takes Poland that’s when the world knows they have a madman on their hands. But 1st came Czechoslovakia, then came Austria, and FINALLY came Poland. The poor Poles!

** You must understand HOW the Treaty of Versailles sets up the FOUNDATION for WWII, and its NOT just $$$$$$$!!!

CONSEQUENCES PART 2:THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS by Woodrow Wilson

The League of Nations was a BEAUTIFUL idea. It was based on the notion that attacking one country would bring all the other countries of the world in its defense. Woodrow Wilson DID NOT want another World War. Well, we all know how THAT worked out.

The problem is that the League of Nations had no global army, no way of MAKING SURE that member states would actually help one another. This lack of an enforcement system made it basically meaningless.

And in the 1930’s guess what, Germany, Italy and Japan just went ahead and LEFT the League. In this way, the League was a FAILURE.

Today, the UN has an ARMY, a NAVY and an AIR FORCE. They all wear funny blue hats and the US pays 25% of their budget….cuz we are “POLICEMAN ___ ____ _______!”

Other relevant consequences of the warBritain lost an entire generation of young men (41,000 lost a limb) and were completely broke. France was broke too. In fact, both of them had borrowed over $2 billion from the U.S. And in those days, that was a lot of money.

Of course, all this borrowing is one of the causes of the Great Depression.

France lost 2 million hectares of farmland to the Western Front. That’s 5,000,000 acres of agricultural land. Today, there is a MASSIVE grave in France full of crosses where the Western Front and all theta trench warfare was.

A. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empire was now no more and as a result, there were all these new and little countries all over Central Europe (Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia etc.)

B. Of course we know what happens with Russia!: Russia is suffering SO MUCH from WWI that Lenin sees his chance. He pulls Russia out of the war and then proclaims the Soviet Union. Don’t 4Get that England and America have HATED Russia ever since 1917.

Also, the Ottoman Empire chose BADLY and turned into TurkeyToday, Turkey is the ONLY real democracy in the Middle East and only country that separates CHURCH/STATE. In their constitution it states that “Turkey can NEVER be a completely Muslim country”. There MUST be Freedom of Religion and the Right to vote!

When the Empire collapses at the end of WWI, it breaks up into:Turkey, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria (the rest of Eastern Europe), Egypt etc.

SO WHO’S TO BLAME FOR WWI?

We all know that the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany too aggressively. Plunging a country into poverty, like in post-war Germany or even post-war Afghanistan, allows the crazeees to take over, such as Hitler or

the Taliban. That’s why we rebuilt Japan after Hiroshima and Nagasaki after all.

If a country has malls and movie theatres it’s not gonna invade anyone. If the country is desperate, however…..

But there is another argument, that perhaps Germany was not wholly to blame. That WWI was EVERYBODY’S fault.

There are many trains of thought here, but I’m gonna give you THE RIGHT ONE!.............................

IT WAS GERMANY’S FAULT!! Maybe ! 1. Was Germany right to attack the US by sinkin’ the Lusitania. We were just chillin and then you go ahead and sink one of our ships. Even if it DID have weapons and even if the British WERE blockading little strudel eating German children. You can argue it was LEGAL but it certainly wasn’t INTELLIGENT!

In addition, you promise to give MEXICO all of Arizona, California and New Mexico. Idiots!! It’s just like the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. “Let sleeping dogs lie”

Don’t 4GET that Japan ONLY bombed Pearl Harbor AFTER we embargoed all the OIL coming into Japan. Again, You can argue it was LEGAL but it certainly wasn’t INTELLIGENT!

2. Secondly, Germany could have chilled the A/H Empire out after the assassination of Franzy. Even the Serbians accepted a truce. But no, A/H bombed the Slavs anyway

So, Germany could have done MORE to calm their Austro-Hungarian brothers

The Schlieffen Plan was A JOKE!!!!!

The stupid crusty old Schlieffen Plan meant that any smell of war from Russia meant that Germany HAD to attack France. Dumb!

Also, It’s not like Russia attacked- they just mobilized! It’s just that Germany interpreted this as WAR, and that meant they MUST attack France IMMEDIATELY!

Plus, the Austro-Hungarian Empire should have known that Serbia and the other Slavs were not to be trifled with!

Finally, Germany got REAL AGGRESSIVE with Africa under Kaiser Wilhelm II. I mean, taking everyone’s colonies and renamed them MITTLEAFRICA, that’s not very nice.

Of course you can argue in the other direction, that the British Blockade was a war crime and that all of the countries are equally to blame for WWI. Just back up your claims on any IB Essay.

THE END!PLEASE ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS FOUND

BELOW.

LONG RESPONSE QUESTIONS:A. Make sure you understand how WWI iz a Total War. Why don’t

you list the FIVE most important characteristics proving that it is here:1.

B. Militarism is a very serious thing. Especially as it relates to WWI.

C. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “Alliances were the doom of the world.”

D. How EXACTLY did NATIONALISM come into play?

E. Why is IMPERIALISM over Africa such a big deal?

F. Why did BOTH France and ENGLAND hate Germany?

Xtra info: Why did France hate Germany?

CONSEQUENCES QUESTIONS1. How did the Treaty of Versailles punish Hitler? List the

punishments here:

2. How did WWI actually contribute to the Great Depression?

3. How are WWI and Vladimir Lenin connected?

4. So, were ze Germans responsible for WWI or not? Was the War Guilt clause justified?

PLEASE MOVE ON TO CASE STUDY #2: IRAN VS. IRAQ AND DESERT STORM