World War I

1914-1918

U.S. involvement 1917-1919

What Caused WWI?

• New nationalism from the consolidation of the German and Italian states

• Russia’s “pan-slavic” union

• System of European alliances

War in Europe

• Central Powers (Triple Alliance)– Austria-Hungary– Germany– Italy

– (eventually Turkey, Bulgaria, and Japan)

• Allied Powers (Triple Entente)– Britain– France– Russia (and Serbia)

– (eventually Greece, Portugal, the U.S. and Italy)

Series of events leading to war

• 1914: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austro-Hungarian throne

• Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia• Russia backed the Serbs• Germany supports Austria and attacks

Russia and France• Britain sides with France, declares war on

Germany

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian in 1914

German War Zone

1915

German U-boat

U-boats

• Threatened traditional warfare

• Britain asserted that it was “uncivilized” warfare

• Wilson demanded that Germany abandon unrestricted submarine warfare

• Germany was viewed as seeking “world dominance”

Lusitania, British passenger liner sunk in 1915

1,198 died, including 128 Americans

British Recruiting Poster WWI

America Claims Neutrality

– Who opposes neutrality?– U.S. opposed German blockade of Britain

but supported the British blockade of Germany

– U.S. supplied 40% of war material to the Triple Entente by 1916

Wilson fears problems at home if US enters the war

Wilson believed a country of immigrants like the U.S. would fracture within

“. . . Lead this people into war, and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance . . .”

The Zimmerman Telegram

German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman sent a telegram to the German minister in Mexico promising that in event of U.S. entering the war, Germany would restore Texas and other territories to Mexico if it declared war on the U.S.

The United States Enters the War

• March 1917, Germany sinks five American vessels off the coast of Britain, killing 66 Americans

• April 6, 1917 U.S. Congress declares war on Germany

American enlistment poster

Military Draft Act (Selective Service), 1917

• Draft of all young men

• 2,000,000 volunteered

• 2,800,000 drafted

• 350,000 failed to report or claimed conscientious objector

Draft Registration Card

John J. Pershing

Commander of the AEF (American Expeditionary

Force)

Trench Warfare

• combatants occupy fighting lines, consisting of trenches in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery.

• It has become a byword for attrition warfare or stalemate, with a slow wearing down of opposing forces

German soldiers in trench

Removing dead from trenches

92nd Division

• Pershing did not want to commit to trench warfare, but to appease the French and British calls for help, sent the all-Black 92nd Division.

• The 92nd Division spent 191 days in battle, longer than any other American division.

• Germans leafleted American troops asking why they fought for “Wall Street robbers.”

African-American unit WWI

US war transports

Artillery position showing guns, ammunition

shells, sandbags, and lean-tos

Learning to use gas masks

Field hospital French church

ambulance

AEF at Chateau-Thierry

American anti-aircraft machine gun

Burial of French Dead

A British Red Cross orderly escorting a wounded, captured German soldier to a field hospital for

treatment

soldiers

Woman Army Recruiter

Women Navy Candidates “yeomanettes”

War statistics

• More than four years

• 8.5 million soldiers dead

Before and After