World War I: A Global Conflict

A Global Conflict

• World War I involved multiple continents and required the full resources of many governments.
• The war propelled the United States into a position of international power, which it still holds today.
• Key individuals include Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau.
• Key terms include unrestricted aubmarine warfare, total war, rationing, propaganda, armistice, and self-determination.

Setting the Stage

• World War I was more than just a European conflict.
• Australia, Japan, India and other non-European nations were involved.
• The Ottoman Turks and Bulgaria sided with Germany and the Central Powers.
• Both sides in the war sought allies around the globe to tip the balance.

War Affects the World

• Main combatants looked beyond Europe, but new alliances didn't end the stalemate.
• The Gallipoli campaign was an Allied strategy to attack the Dardanelles to capture Constantinople, defeat the Turks, and establish a supply line to Russia.
• The Gallipoli Campaign began in February 1915 involving British, Australian, New Zealand, and French troops, but became a bloody stalemate.
• Battles also occurred in Africa and Asia, where Germany's colonial possessions were attacked.
• Japan seized German outposts in China and the Pacific.
• English and French troops attacked Germany's African colonies.
• British and French recruited troops and laborers from their colonies.
• Some colonial subjects hoped that service would lead to their independence.

America Joins the Fight

• In 1917, the focus of the war shifted to the high seas.
• Germany intensified submarine warfare in the Atlantic.
• Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917.
• In May 1915, a German U-boat sank the British passenger ship Lusitania, killing 1,198 people including 128 U.S. citizens.
• The American public was outraged.
• Germany initially agreed to stop attacking neutral and passenger ships after protests.
• Germany returned to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, knowing it might lead to war with the United States.
• Germany gambled that their naval blockade would starve Britain into defeat before the United States could mobilize.
• German U-boats sank three American ships.
• The Zimmermann note proposed that Germany would help Mexico reconquer land lost to the United States if Mexico allied itself with Germany.
• On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, and the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies.

War Affects the Home Front

• By the time the United States joined, the war had been raging for nearly three years and had claimed millions of lives.
• World War I became a total war, meaning countries devoted all their resources to the war effort.
• Governments took control of the economy, directing factories on what to produce and how much.
• There was widespread rationing.
• Antiwar activity was suppressed, and news about the war was censored.
• Propaganda was used to maintain morale and support for the war.

Women and the War

• Governments turned to women for help as never before.
• Women replaced men in factories, offices, and shops.
• Total war meant that governments turned to help from women as never before, building munitions, tanks, plowing fields and working in hospitals.
• Women changed people's views of what they were capable of doing.
• Women also worked near the front lines as nurses.

The Allies Win the War

• With the United States in the war, the balance seemed to tip in the Allies' favor.
• In March 1917, civil unrest in Russia led to Czar Nicholas stepping down.
• A provisional government pledged to continue fighting the war, but the Russian army refused to fight any longer.
• In November 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin seized power and offered Germany a truce.
• In March 1918, Germany and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the war between them.
• Russia's withdrawal allowed Germany to send all its forces to the Western Front.
• In March 1918, Germany mounted a final attack on the Allies in France.
• By late May 1918, the Germans reached the Marne River, but the German military had weakened.
• With the aid of US troops, the Allies launched a counterattack.
• In July 1918, the Allies and Germans clashed at the Second Battle of the Marne.
• The US joined with 2 million troops and were smashing through german lines with tanks.
• The Central Powers began to crumble, with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Turks surrendering.
• In October, revolution swept through Austria-Hungary.

End of the War

• On November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped down, and Germany declared itself a republic.
• An armistice was signed on November 11, ending World War I.

The Legacy of the War

• World War I was a new kind of war involving new technologies and a global scale.
• About 8.5 million soldiers died, 21 million were wounded, and countless civilians died.
• The war had a devastating economic impact on Europe.
• There was widespread disillusionment and despair.
• The peace agreement prompted anger and resentment.

A Flawed Peace

• After winning the war, the Allies dictated a harsh peace settlement that left many nations feeling betrayed.
• The Treaty of Versailles caused hard feelings that helped cause World War II.
• Self-determination was a key ideal.
• The end of the was killing, but peace terms still needed to be worked out.
• The Paris Peace Conference began in January 1919 with delegates from 32 countries.
• Key individuals were Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy.

The Allies Meet and Debate

• Major decisions were made by the Big Four after a year of often conflicting negotiations.
• Russia was not represented. Neither were Germany and its allies.

Wilson's Plan for Peace

• The Fourteen Points outlined a plan for achieving a just and lasting peace.
• Points included an end to secret treaties, freedom of the seas, free trade, and reduced national armies and navies.
• Adjustment of colonial claims with fairness toward colonial peoples.
• Specific suggestions for changing borders and creating new nations.
• The guiding idea behind these points was self-determination.
• A "general association of nations" would protect all states.

The Versailles Treaty

• Britain and France wanted to strip Germany of its war-making power with little interest in President Wilson's vision of peace.
• This led to heated arguments among the nations' leaders.
• The League of Nations was created.
• The league was to keep peace among nations.
• The treaty also punished Germany and placed all war blame on Germany, forcing them to pay reparations.
• The harshest was Article 231, the "war guilt" clause
• All of Germany's territories in Africa and the Pacific were declared mandates, to be administered by the League of Nations.

A Troubled Treaty

• The Versailles treaty was just one of five treaties negotiated by the Allies.
• The agreements created feelings of bitterness and betrayal.
• New Nations and Mandates were formed.
• Western powers signed treaties in 1919 and 1920 with the defeated nations.
• New countries were created out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• The Ottoman Turks gave up almost all of their former empire.
• The Allies carved up the lands that the Ottomans lost in Southwest Asia into mandates.
• Russia suffered land losses as well.
• The United States ultimately rejected the Treaty of Versailles.
• Americans believed that the United States' best hope for peace was to stay out of European affairs.

The Legacy

• The settlement did little to build a lasting peace as most nations were bitter or felt that they were betrayed.
• The settlement was described as a "peace built on quicksand", with the legacy of bitterness among the victors and the defeated plunging the world into another catastrophic war in a couple of decades.

Treaty of Versailles: Loss

• Territorial Losses included returning Alsace-Lorraine to France, and French border extended to west bank of Rhine River.
• Germany surrenders all of its overseas colonies in Africa and the Pacific.
• Military Restrictions limited the size of the German army.
• Germany was prohibited from importing or manufacturing weapons or war material.
• They were forbidden to build or buy submarines or have an air force.
• The War Guilt was placed solely on Germany's shoulders.
• They were forced to pay the Allies $33 billion in reparations over 30 years.