I. The Stage is Set
A. Pressure for Peace
� After Alfred Nobel invented his dynamite, he saw how the military were going to use it and regretted that he never invented such a thing.
� He set up a Nobel Peace Prize to reward annually one individual whose work advanced the cause of peace in the world, and this award is still in the same use today.
� In 1899, the First Universal Peace Conference brought together leaders of many nations in Netherlands where they set up a world court to settle the disputes between nations.
B. Aggressive Nationalism
� Nationalism can be a positive thing where they celebrate the patriotism of their own country, but at the same time, they can cause bitter conflicts.
� Germany and France were both very proud of their country because of their new empire�s military power and industrial leadership, and for France, they longed to regain its position as Europe�s leading power.
� In Russian Pan-Slavism, all Slavic people shared a common nationality and felt that it had a duty to lead and defend all Slavs.
C. Economic and Imperial Rivalries
� The British felt threatened by the Germany�s economic growth and Germany�s new, modern factories out produced Britain�s older ones.
� That�s why Britain had strong economic reasons to oppose Germany in any conflict; Germany, thought other great powers did not give them enough respect.
� Imperialisms divided European nations; Germany wanted to keep France from imposing a protectorate on the Muslim kingdom of Morocco.
D. Militarism and the Arms Race
� Militarism is the glorification of the military and this idea started to rise in the late 1800�s, and under this, the armed forces and readiness for war came to dominate national policy.
� Young men dreamed of blaring trumpets and heroic cavalry charges; the rise of militarism was partly grown out from the idea of Social Darwinism.
� The fear of war had a big influence on the military leaders and in order to make peace, the governments would usually turn to the military leaders for advice, and these people loved their respect.
E. A Tangle of Alliances
� Many feared other nations and therefore, nations signed treaties pledging to defend each other, and intended to create powerful combinations that no on would dare attack.
� The first alliances had their origins in Bismarck�s day and were aware that France longed to avenge its humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
� Germany signed treaties with the Ottoman Empire, while Britain grew closer with Japan and rather than easing tension between these nations, it made governments more nervous and could go into general warfare.
II. The Guns f August
A. A Murder With Millions of Victims
� In 1914, a small group of young people gathered together and read an article about the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary who would visit Sarajevo.
� These people were very frustrated and on the same day were they were conquered but in 1912, they had at last freed itself from Turkish rule.
� Gavrilo Princip joined Unity or Death, which is a terrorist group commonly known as the Black hand and its goal was to organize all South Slav people into one single nation.
B. Peace Unravels
� Austria sent Serbia a sweeping ultimatum, which is a final set of demands and to avoid war, Serbia must end all anti-Austrian agitation and punish any official involved in the murder plot.
� While all these things were going on, Russia began to mobilize, which means to prepare its military forces for war and Germany declared war on them.
� Neutrality is a policy of supporting neither side in a war and Britain had to decide quickly whether or not to support its ally France.
C. Whose Fault?
� During the war, each side blamed the other and afterward, the victorious Allies put the blame on Germany.
� Each of these great power believed that that cause of this war that just Austria wanted to punish Serbia for encouraging terrorism.
� Even though the decision was up to the government, the regular people chose to commit themselves for military action.
III. A New Kind of Conflict
A. The Western Front
� While the war was beginning, forces swept through Belgium toward Paris, but German generals soon violated the Schlieffen Plan.
� In 1916, both the Allies and Ventral Powers launched massive offensives to break the stalemate, and in the end, 60,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded.
� Because technologies were started to become popular, modern weapons were used during the war and added big time destruction to the war.
B. Other European Fronts
� On the Eastern Front, battle lines swayed back and forth, sometimes even over large areas and then because of the war, many deaths have occurred.
� Casualties rose even higher than in the west, but the results were just as indecisive and because the casualties were so high, you would thing that they would stop; however, the war kept going on.
� Russian armies pushed into eastern Germany, however, at the battle of Tannenburg, they had to suffer the worst defeat ever, which some lsot their confidence.
C. The War Beyond Europe
� European colonies were drawn in and the allies overran scattered German colonies in Africa and Asia.
� The government wanted all these people to join their military force to fight for their country against their enemies, however many people had mixed feeling of where or not they wanted to go or not.
� In January 1916, after 10 months of war and battles, 200,000 casualties were recorded. That is a very huge number for battle and I think they should stop battle now because it would only kill more innocent people.
IV. Winning the War
A. Effects of the Stalemate
� Total war was when war was in its final stages and that the world was very interest because there was a lot of a person that died in the world and that there were people.
� Propaganda is the spreading of ideas to promote a cause or damage an opposing cause. This was the way people brought what they thought about to the world.
� Atrocities, horrible act against innocent people. These were horrible things that happened to so many people in this world. It was a sad thing that happened to these people.
B. Women at War
� The women were very important in this war. This total war was based on the women of the country taking up all the jobs that the men at war had to do. They were the ones working.
� This was a great thing for the women because they were working as men and now everyone could see that they could do anything that the men were able to do.
� This was a great thing for the women because they were working as men and now everyone could see that they could do anything that the men were able to do.
C. Collapsing Morale
� During the 1917, the morale of both troops and civilians had plugged. Both these countries were going through hard times. Britain and Germany both had a hard time during this war.
� Britain was going bankrupt supporting this war. It was very costly to support this war with the large amounts of people that were involved in this war that had to be feed and token care of.
� Germany was having similar problems with this war by that same time. Germany started to send younger people to fight in these wars, 15-year-old boys went to fight in the war.
D. The United States Declares War
� The Americans in the United States of America decided to come into this war when one of there submarines got hit and sunk by a German submarines.
� This was a wake up call for the Americans that told them that the war was going to include them no matter how low they stayed. This was the turning point.
� The United States had many reasons why they join allies with the countries that they picked. They had many similar ties with Britain in culture and language.
E. Campaign to Victory
� The final major battle was going to happen in 1918 when Germany came up with a huge offensive move that moved the American and British troops back 40 miles, by July.
� With this the Americans and the British came up with a counter attack that was very powerful. It pushed the Germanys back through France and Belgium.
� With this, the people living in Germany showed their monarch their frustration. This happened when the hungry people uprising with an explosion.
V. Making the Peace
A. The Cost of War
� More than 8.5 million people were dead and double that number have been wounded and many were left handicapped for life.
� People were dying from famine; however, the lives of people were more threatened by the new epidemic of influenza. This swept around the world, killing more than 20 million people
� By now, people felt a bit bitter about the war and the Allies blamed the conflict on their defeated foes and insisted that the losers make reparations, which were payments for war damage.
B. The Paris Peace Conference
� Woodrow Wilson was one of three strong personalities who dominated the Paris Peace Conference. He was so sure of his rightness that he could be hard to work with.
� Crowds that consisted of other representatives gathered around these three people with their own demands and interests that dealt with the secret agreements signed by the Allies during the war.
� Self-determination started to become popular everywhere, and many people who were under control by Germany, Russia, etc., demanded to have their own national lands that would satisfy them.
C. The Treaty of Versailles
� In 1919, the peacemakers got together representatives of the new German Republic to the palace of Versailles outside of Paris.
� They agreed to a treaty that imposed huge reparations that would put an already damaged German economy under a staggering burden.
� Other clauses were aimed at weakening Germany. The treaty also limited the size of German military machine because we all saw how scary and powerful their military can get, so this helped people lower their fear.
D. Other Settlements
� A band of new nations emerged where the German, Austrian, and Russian people had once in their lifetime ruled.
� As a result there are three new republics, which were the Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary and they rose in Hapsburg heartland.
� These treaties, having already done so much, also created system of mandates, or territories that were administered by western powers.
E. Hopes for Global Peace
� After the long devastating war, the many people looked to the league to ensure peace, especially seen what causes people to act so violently toward each other and start to murder and kill.
� Wilson�s dream finally became a reality and yet his own Senate refused to approve the treaty and the United States never joined the league.
� Although the league was not powerful enough to end aggression in the world, this was still the first step toward at least trying to make peace within the world.