World War I

The Great War

What were the Causes of World War One?

What were the Causes of WWI?

• Nationalism• Imperialism/Colonialism• Militarism

What else?

• Diplomatic Failures• Alliance System

Pre-WWI Alliances

• 1882 Triple Alliance• 1894 Franco-Russian

Alliance• 1904 Entente Cordiale• 1907 Anglo-Russian

Entente

Alignment on the Eve of War

• Entente: Britain, France, Russia, US (sort of)

• Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

• June 28, 1914• Heir to Austro-Hungarian

throne• Killed in Sarajevo by

Serbian separatists• Austro-Hungarian Empire

accuses Serbian government of endorsing the assassination

The July Crisis

• A-H demands reparations from Serbian government, they refuse

• A-H declares war• Russia sees this as a

threat to their influence in the region, declares war on A-H

• Boom. WWI starts.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

• Last German emperor and king of Prussia

• Aggressively pursued colonial expansion

• Alienates Britain with naval expansion

• One of the most hated men in Europe outside of Germany

• Offered full support to A-H as Serbian crisis intensified

The Schlieffen Plan

• Germany knew it was going to face a 2-front war

• Predicted that Russia would be slow to mobilize

• Planned to defeat France quickly, then turn attention to Russia

• Basis of German strategy in WWI and WWII

The Western Front

• Germany invades Belgium in 1914, forces Britain into the war

• Constant fighting• 8 Million Entente

casualties• 5.6 Million Central

Power casualties

Trench Warfare

• The Western Front became an intricate series of trenches

• Snipers, machine guns, artillery

• Little protection from the elements

• Disease

The Vickers Machine Gun

First and Only Legal Use of Chemical Warfare

Why do you think chemical and biological warfare are now considered a war crimes?

Battle of the Marne, Sept. 6-10, 1914

• High-water mark of German dominance in the W. Front

• Germans planned to hit the northern flank of the French, push them back, encircle French army and Paris simultaneously

Battle of the Marne, Sept. 6-10, 1914

• France counterattacks, Forcing the Germans to move south of Paris, preventing encirclement

• Germans become bottle-necked in the Marne River Valley

• Halting Germany at the Marne was the first major German defeat of the war

Battle of Verdun, February-December 1916

• Longest battle of WWI• Verdun region held 20

major forts and 40 smaller forts

• German military realizes that a decisive victory here could be an immediate knock out punch

Beginning of the Battle

• Germany moves in 140,000 soldiers and 1,200 artillery guns that would put down 2.5 million shells on the French

• French forts weakened only 30,000 French soldiers in the region at the start

Flamethrowers

• First use of flamethrowers in combat was during the Battle of Verdun

• Use of flamethrowers in combat is now considered a war crime

Verdun

• Verdun quickly turns into a stalemate

• The Germans are unable to capture the city

• 360,000 Germans and 340,000 French are lost during the battle

The Somme

• Joint British-French attack• Entente leaders intend to

bleed Germany of resources• World War One military

strategy essentially assured a stalemate

Somme

• The battles of the Somme and Verdun were the epitome of World War One battles. Enormous troop movements and artillery bombardments that result in stalemates.