World War I

“The First World War began as an old war…Everything about it expressed the world that Americans hoped they had left behind. That Old World was a battlefield of national ambitions, religious

persecutions, and language barriers. European armies had fought over whether a nation’s boundary should be on one side

or the other of a narrow river. Old World monarchs had transferred land from one flag to another, bartering people as if

they were real estate.”

(European) Global conflict, 1914-1918

• The First World War• The War to End All Wars• The Great War• The Capitalists War• The Industrialists War• The Imperialists War

• Involved 60 nations on 6 continents

Costs of the War

• $600 billion• 60 million soldiers mobilized, 40 million

casualties, 20 million civilian & military deaths

Causes of the War

MilitarismAlliances

ImperialismNationalism

Imperialism

European Imperialism in Africa on the Eve of World War I

European Imperialism in Asia on the Eve of World War I

Nationalism

MilitarismTotal Defense Expenditures for the Great Powers [Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Italy ,& Russia], in millions of dollars

1910-1914 Increase in Defense Expenditures

1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1914

94 130 154 268 289 398

France 10%

Britain 13%Russia 39%Germany 73%

Alliances

Definition: an agreement between two, or more, military factions; related to wartime planning, commitments, or contingencies; such agreements can be both defensive and offensive. Military alliances often involve non-military agreements, in addition to their primary purpose.

Reasoning:

-cultural issues?

Serbia, 1914

The Spark…The Assassination of the Archduke

Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, & his family.

Garvillo Princip, Serbian nationalist, member of the Black Hand, dedicated to Serbian independence

Stalemate

• By, Sept 1914, the war had reached a stalemate, a situation in which neither side is able to gain an advantagel.

• When a combination of French & British forces stopped a German advance near Paris, both sides holed up in trenches separated by an empty “no man’s land.” Small gains in land resulted in huge numbers of human casualties.

• Both sides continued to add new allies and utilize new technologies, hoping to gain an advantage.

Modern Warfare

• Neither soldiers nor officers were prepared for the new, highly efficient killing machines used in WWI

• Machine guns, hand grenades, artillery shells, and poison gas killed thousands of soldiers who left their trenches to attack the enemy.

• As morale fell, the lines between soldiers and civilians began to blur. The armies began to burn fields, kill livestock, and poison wells.

DULCE ET DECORUM ESTWilfred Owen (OCT 1917)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed

through sludge,  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs  And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all

blind;  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green

light,  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 

To children ardent for some desperate glory,  The old Lie;

Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori.

“The first world war began as an old war..

…Everything about it expressed the world that Americans hoped they had left behind. That Old World was a battlefield of national ambitions, religious persecutions, and language barriers. European armies had fought over whether a nation’s boundary should be on one side or the other of a narrow river. Old World monarchs had transferred land from one flag to another, bartering people as if they were real estate.”

The United States in 1914

• Panama Canal was completed in August, 1914, one week before the beginning of WWI

• W. Wilson, as President, advocated a policy of Moral (Missionary) Diplomacy to promote American values

• American’s were shocked by the outbreak of war in Europe… although it was, after all, Europe

• Officially, the US was neutral

US Foreign Policy, 1914

• US had a right to trade with warring nations

• Warring nations must respect our neutrality

• Wilson advocated a principle of “the freedom of the seas”

German Submarine Warfare

• Blockade of Britain (in response to a British blockade of Germany)

• Unrestricted submarine warfare• Violations of US neutrality… Freedom of the

seas• By 1918, German U-Boats had sunk 6,500

allied ships

Effects of Allied blockade

• 1914, $70 million in trade with Central powers

• 1916, trade reduced to $1.3 million

Allied trade •Grew from $825 million to

$3.2 billion in same time period

• WWI transformed the US from a debtor to a creditor

nation

Factors in US involvement

• Economic: trade, loans w/ allies• Cultural: affinity toward the English• Social: anti-German sentiment, sinking of the

Sussex, Lusitania• Political: freedom of the seas vs. unrestricted

submarine warfare• Zimmerman Telegram: German offer of

alliance w/ Mexico