World War I: The Great War
1914-1918 and its repercussions
Why was World War I significant?
• World War I (1914-1918):
– began in Europe, but involved
countries as far away as the United
States and Japan.
– was one of the bloodiest and most
catastrophic wars in history, since it
was the first war to use modern
technology.
– was also the first total war-- countries
put all of their resources into the war
effort, and the war affected civilians
and soldiers alike.
• Furthermore World War I led
almost directly to World War II
and set the stage for many other
important events in the
twentieth century.
Who were the combatants in World War I?
• The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary and
the Ottoman Empire
• The Allied Powers: Britain, France, Russia and the
United States
What specific events led to the
outbreak of war in 1914?
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Austria:
The killing of the Austrian heir and his wife by a young Serbian
nationalist Gabriel Princips allowed the long-awaited war to begin.
What were the MAIN causes of
World War I?
• Militarism: A desire to use new modern
weapons, and to build your military’s power.
• Alliances: A desire to back countries who
were your friends.
• Imperialism: A desire to take over other lands
and make them your empire.
• Nationalism: A desire to show the superiority
of your nation.
What was the attitude toward
World War I in 1914?
• Most Europeans, after
decades of tension, were
eager for war to begin in
1914.
• Both the Triple Entente
and the Central Powers
expected war to be quick
and rewards to be great.
Propaganda promoted World War I
• Much of public opinion about
the war came from
propaganda.
• The first World War
harnessed modern
technologies as part of the
war machine, ranging from
weapons to modern
advertising.
• Propaganda images were
intended to promote
nationalism and sell the war
to citizenry.
II. The War Itself, 1914-1918
Describe the military strategies used in
World War I, 1914-1917
• The war in the West: The
Schlieffen Plan was Germany’s
plan to defeat France quickly
before Russia mobilized, to
avoid a two-front war.
– Unfortunately for Germany, the
plan failed. Similarly, France
under-estimated German strength
at the border and was unable to
take the offensive.
– Thus war was not quick or easy.
Then the reality hit: Modern warfare
• Instead the war on the Western Front
became a war of attrition, not
movement. German and French
forces dug trenches into their border.
• New mechanized weapons
technology was also introduced.
• Coupled with new mechanized
weapons, trench warfare cost
hundreds of thousands of lives for
advances of a few hundred yards. For
example in the Battle of the Somme,
57,000 British troops died and 19,000
were injured.
• What were the new weapons? (over)
New weapons technologies changed warfare’s
nature, speed and efficiency:
• Guns and bombs (from pistols to major artillery) with better accuracy and
range of fire, enabled armies to fire upon each other across long distances
and obstructed views. Machine guns let single soldiers effectively take on
multiple opponents.
• Motorized vehicles, such as trucks, cars and trains, improved troops and
supplies’ deployment speed and distance.
• Tanks, airplanes and submarines changed how wars were fought. Machine
guns and mustard gas were used in trenches. Eventually the tank was
introduced by the British and beat the machine gun.
• Chemical warfare like mustard gas and other poison gases was used on a
large scale for the first time, with results so gruesome that most countries
vowed never to use such weapons again.
Excerpts from Erich Maria Remarque’s All
Quiet on the Western Front
The] tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armoured they come rolling on in
long lines, more than anything else embody for us the horror of war.
We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy
infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their
caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll
without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a
fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts
squashing the dead and the wounded—we shrivel up in our thin skin
before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and
our hand-grenades matches.
Shells, gas clouds, and the flotillas of tanks—shattering, corroding, death.
Dysentery, influenza , typhus—scalding, choking, death.
Trenches, hospitals, the common grave—there are no other possibilities.
Excerpts from Erich Maria Remarque’s All
Quiet on the Western Front
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but
despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of
sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence,
unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slaying one another. I
see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to
make it yet more refined and enduring. And all the men of my age,
here and over there, throughout the world see these things; all my
generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our
fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered
our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the
war is over? Through the years our business has been killing—it was
our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What
will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?
Aftermath of the Battle of Verdun
Describe the end of World War I.
• In 1917, the Allies tried and failed to break through
across German lines. Deadlock continued.
• In March 1918, Germany decided to take one last
offensive. There were no more reserves, and troops were
exhausted.
• The Allies waged a counteroffensive including newly
deployed American troops, which were irresistible. The
German commander asked for peace on the basis of
American President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points-
“Peace without victors or vanquished.”
• World War I ended.
III. The Aftermath, 1918-1939
What were the Great War’s consequences?
• This final section will detail how WWI had many short and
long term effects on Europe and the rest of the world.
– Despite efforts to create lasting peace after WWI, the Versailles
Peace Treaty failed.
– The League of Nations was created to prevent future wars.
However, it was too weak to succeed.
– Germany was blamed for WWI and forced to accept harsh peace
terms. Lasting bitterness and other problems followed.
– Europe had suffered economic devastation and civilian casualties,
its youth was disillusioned and it had a “Lost Generation” of men.
– The Second Coming?: The rise of extremism and World War II
Explain the Armistice and Peace Treaty
ending World War I and their effects.
• WWI’s brutality briefly inspired determination among
nations to use diplomacy to resolve conflicts in the
future--i.e., the League of Nations.
• The American president, Woodrow Wilson, was an intellectual
who a plan to make WWI the “war to end all wars.” Wilson’s
Fourteen Points promised:
– Democracy
– national self-determination
– open diplomacy rather than alliances
– freedom of the seas
– disarmament and
– the establishment of a League of Nations to prevent future wars.
Explain the Armistice and Peace Treaty
ending World War I and their effects.
• The actual armistice failed to achieve
Wilson’s vision of peace and prosperity:
– No demilitarization.
– “Open covenants openly arrived at” and “a peace
without victors” gave way to closed sessions that
excluded Russia and Germany– building tensions.
– Imperialism remained an unresolved problem.
– Countries were not given national self-
determination.
– The League of Nations was created to prevent future
wars, but was weak since it lacked troops and
excluded Russia and Germany.
WWI also had huge social and economic costs.
• 8-9 million soldiers
died in battle.
• 20% of men age 20 to
44 were dead by 1918
What were WWI’s social and economic costs?
• 13 million civilians
died, from genocide.
• Famine and diseases
like the “Spanish
Influenza” and typhus
raised the death toll by
another 20 million.
• In total, the loss of life
worldwide surpassed
40 million.
Conclusion:
• Fought as the “Great War” and “The War to End All
Wars,” Europeans lost control of WWI.
• It opened Pandora’s box of modern weaponry, and
destroyed more lives and property than any war in
history up to that point.
• Despite efforts to solve the problems that had led to the
war, problems castrated the League of Nations and
made the Peace Treaty a failure.
• Thus by the 1930s, militarism, alliances, imperialism
and nationalism would flare up again and lead to
second, even more destructive world war.
W.B. Yeats: The Second Coming (1921)