history 24
Louis Franchet d'espères
•France's capable battlefield commander who transformed the Allied expedition in Greece •results were remarkable: In September a three week offensive by Greek and allied forces knocked Bulgaria out of war
Mensheviks
•"members of minority" •like most European socialists wanted to move toward socialism gradually, supporting liberal revolution in the short term •reasoned that because 80-85% of population was peansants, a proletarian revolution was premature and that Russia needed to complete its capitalist development •regained control of their party (Russian social democrats) but Bolshevik splinter party survived
The Sinn Féin party
•"we ourselves" •party formed in 1900 to fight for Irish independence and a home rule bill had passed in Parliament in 1912 but with outbreak of war in 1914 national interests took precedence over domestic politics: the "Irish question" was tabled
Battle of the Somme
•Allied attack began with a fierce bombardment blasting the German lines with 1,400 guns •British assumed that this preliminary attack would break the mesh of German wire, destroy Germany's trenches, and clear the way for the allied troops to advance forward, were tragically wrong •when British soldiers were ordered over the top towards enemy lines they found themselves snared in wire and facing fully operational German machine guns •those who made it to the enemy trenches faced bitter hand to hand combat with pistols, grenades, knives, bayonets, and bare hands •on the first day of battle alone a stunning 21,000 British soldiers died and another 30,000 were wounded •carnage continued from July until mid November resulting in massive casualties on both sides, for all their sacrifices neither side made any real gains
Balkin Crisis of July 1914
•Balkin peninsula had long been a satellite of the Ottoman Empire •during the 19th cent. Ottoman Empire became severely weakened and both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russian monarchy competed to replace Ottomans as dominant force in the region •region was also home to ambitious national movement of Serbs and Bulgarians who took advantage of Ottoman decline to declare their independence in the decades before the the First World War, Russia was the traditional sponsor of these Slavic nationalist movements unlike Austria Hungary which sought to minimize influence of Slavic nationalities •In 1913 and 1912 region was destabilized by two wars involving Ottoman Empire and independent Balkin states of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro •Great powers stay clear of entanglement and conflict, if they join system of alliances would lead directly to wider war
Colonial areas
•Became strategically important theaters for armed engagement •Although the campaign against Turkey began poorly for Britain beginning in 1916 allied forces won a series of battles pushing the Turks out of Egypt and eventually capturing Baghdad, Jerusalem, Beirut, and other cities throughout the Middle East
Arthur Balfour
•Britain's foreign secretary made the pledge that British declared their support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people"
Edmund Allenby
•British commander in Egypt and Palestine who led a multinational army against the Turks •In his campaigns, the support of different Arab people seeking independence from the Turks proved crucial •allied himself to the successful Bedouin revolts that split the Ottoman Empire
Sir Douglas Haig
•British commander who issued a famous order warning that British troops "now fight with out backs to the war"
Winston Churchill
•British first lord of the admiralty who argued for a naval officer in the Dardanelles
David Lloyd George
•British prime minister who thought the military governor in Dublin exceeded his authority with executions of rebel leaders
Third battle of Ypres
•British reprised battle of the Somme •half a million casualties earned Great Britain only insignificant gains
Europe's response to war
•Europeans realize they face Austria and it's ally Germany facing a war with Serbia, Serbia's ally Russia, and Russia's ally France •Germany mobilizes and declares war on Russia, and two days later on France, invade Belgium on the way to Paris •invasion of neutral Belgium provides rallying cry for British generals and diplomats who wanted Britain to honor their secret obligations to France and join the war against Germany, proponents of war insisted that to maintain balance of power no single nation must be allowed to dominate continent so on Aug. 4 Britain enters war against Germany •Japanease declared war on Germany to attack German possessions in the far east •Turkey allied with Germany and in October began bombardment of Russian ports on the Black Sea •Italy had been allied with Germany and Austria before war but at outbreak of hostilities Italians declare neutrality inciting that since Germany had invaded neutral Belgium they owed Germany no protection
March 21st
•Germany initiated a major assault on the west and quickly broke through the Allied lines •British hit the hardest, some units fought to death, but others surrendered putting tens of thousands of prisoners in German hands •Germans advanced to within fifty miles of Paris by early April, but British stemmed the tide •a last great try by well-organized German army who now waited for allies to mount their attack
Hindenburg Plan
•Germany put it's economy in the hands if army and industry under the Hindenburg Plan •named for Paul von Hindinburg, the chief of the imperial staff of the German army •pricing and profit margins were set by individual industrialists •Germany's wartime economy was characterized as chaotic, ultimately disastrous system governed by personal interest
Tripple Alliance
•Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy •later the Central powers •rival triple entente
Rations
•Gov't regulated not only food but also working hours and wages •indictated only what was allowed not what was available
1914-1915 Russia
•In 1914 and 1915, Russia suffered terrible defeats: all of Poland and substantial territory in the Baltics fell to Germans •Russian army was the largest in Europe, but it was poorly trained at the beginning of the war, under supplied, and inadequately equipped •By 1915 Russia was producing enough food, clothing, and ammunition but political problems blocked supply effort •By the end of 1916 brought a combination of political ineptitude and military defeat brought the Russian state to the verge of collapse
Shortages
•In 1916-1917 the lack of clothing, food, and fuel was aggravated in central Europe by abnormally cold, wet weather •these strains provoked rising discontent on the home front •In urban areas where undernourishment was worst, people stood in lines for hours to get food and fuel rations that scarcely met their most basic needs •Gov'ts were concentrated on the war effort and faced different decisions about who needed supplies the most—> soldiers at the front, workers in the munitions industry ir hungry and cold families
October Revolution
•Lenin convinced his party to act, goaded Leon Trotsky who was better known among workers into organizing a Bolshevik revolution on the provisional gov't on October 24-25 1917 •On Oct 25 Lenin appeared from hiding to announce to a stunned meeting of soviet representatives that "all power had passed to the Soviets" •head of the provisional gov't fled to rally support at the front lines, and Bolsheviks took over the winter palace, seat of the provisional gov't •initial stage of revolution was quick and relatively bloodless
Mandate System
•Ottoman territories placed under French and British control became part if the colonial "mandate system" which legitimized Europe's dominance over territories in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific •territories were divided into groups on the basis of their location and their "level of development" •choice pieces of land became mandates held, in principe, by the League of Nations but administered by Britain and France
Brest-Litovsk treaty
•Russia negotiated separate treaty with Germany, signed at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 •surrendered vast Russian territories, Ukraine, Georgia, Finland Russia's Polish territories, the Baltic states, and more •treaty ended Russia's role in the fighting and saved the fledging communist regime from aknist certain military defeat at hands of Germans
Battle of Tannenberg
•Russia's initial gains were obliterated at the battle of Tennnenberg, Augest 26-30 •Germans devastated army, taking 92,000 prisoners and virtually destroying the Russian Second Army
the Big Four
•U.S president Woodrow Willson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and Italian premier Vittorio Orlando •controlled the Paris peace conference •debates among four personalities were fierce, as all had conflicting ambitions and interests
aftermath of the war
•Wilson's idealism about freedom and equal representation confirmed aims •representatives of Yugoslavia were granted a state, Czechoslovakia was created, Poland was reestablished, Hungary separated from Austria, and the Baltic states made independent •these national boundaries did not follow ethnic divisions, created according to to facts on the ground, hasty compromises, and political dictates
14 points
•Wilson's widely publicized fourteen points represented the spirit of idealism •Wilson preposed the 14 points before the war ended, as the foundation of a permanent peace •based on the principle of "open covenants of peace, openly arrived at" •called for an end to secret diplomacy, freedom of the seas, removal of international terrifies, and reduction of national armaments, called for the establishment of a League of Nations to settle international conflicts
The Bolsheviks
•a branch of the Russian socialist movement who had little to do with events of February 1917 but over the next seven months they became enough of a force to overthrow provisional government •split from Russian social democrats, favored a centralized party of active revolutionaries •believed that the revolution alone would lead directly to a socialist regime •"memebers of majority"
Battle of Marne
•after initial failure of French counterattacks into Alsace-Lorraine failed french commander Jules Joffre reorganized his armies and slowly drew the Germans into a trap •In September with Germans just 30 miles outside their capital Britain and France launched a successful counteroffensive at the battle of the Marne, German line retreated and what was left of Schlieffen Plan was dead •most strategically important battle of the entire war: upended Europe's expectations of the war and dashed hopes that it would quickly finish
Beginning of Trench warfare
•after the Marne, unable to advance the armies tried to outflank one another to the north, racing to the sea •after 4 months of swift charges across open ground, Germany set up a fortified defensive position that the allies could not break, by Christmas trench warfare had begun
natalist policies
•after war gov't tried to enforce natalist policies to encourage women to go home, marry, and most importantly have children •these policies made maternity benefits available to women for the first time
The tank
•one weapon with with the potential to break the stalemate •with such reluctance by tradition bound commanders that its halfhearted employment made almost no difference
The Gallipoli campaign
•allies attempt land invasion of Gallipoli Peninsula with a combined force of French, British, Australian, and New Zealand troops •Turks defended narrow coast from positions high on fortified cliffs and the shores were covered with nearly impenetrable barbed wire •battle became entrenched on the beaches at Gallipoli—> brought death into London's neighborhoods
Allie naval blockade
•allies started to wage war on the economic front •Germany was vulnerable, dependent as it was on imports for at least one third of it's food supply, allies naval blockade against all of central Europe aimed to slowly drain their opponents of food and raw materials •Germany responded with a submarine blockade, threatening to attack any vessel in the seas around Great Britain
Turkey's involvement in war
•altered the dynamics of the war by threatening Russia's supply lines and endangered Britons control of the Suez Canal
The League of Nations
•an organization envisioned as the arbiter of world peace but never achieved the idealistic aims of its founders •league was handicapped from the start by a number of changes to its original design
German kaiser
•announced abdication in Berlin on November 9th, he fled to Holland early the next morning causing control of gov't to fall to a provisional council headed by Friedrich Ebert a socialist leader in Reichstag •Ebert and his colleagues immediately took steps to negotiate an armistice
Civilians
•as workers, tax payers, and consumers civilians were vital parts of the war economy •produced munitions, purchased war bonds, and shouldered the burden of tax hikes, inflation, and material privations
The Battle of the Somme
•began on June 24, 1916 with a fearsome British artillery barrage against German trenches along a 25 mile front •when guns went silent British soldiers rose up out of trenches and went into No Mans Land that separated the 2 armies, had been told wire-cutting explosives would destroy the labyrinth of barbed wire between the trenches but they found it intact •found themselves caught in the open when German machine gunners manned the defensive parapets •21,000 British soldiers were killed on the first day of the battle of the Somme
Spark for Balkin Crisis
•came from Balkin province of Bosnia that'd been under Austrian rule since 1878 •In Bosnia members of local Serb population longed to succeed from Austrian rule and join independent state of Serbia •when Bosnian serbs are blocked by Austrians some conspire with Serbia and on June 28, 1914 a group of Bosnian Serbs assassinator the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand as he paraded through Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia •Austrians treat assassination as direct attack by Serbian gov't, announce ultimatum to Serbia demanding that they denounce activities of Bosnian serbs, abstain from propoganda, and allow Austro-Hungarian officials to prosecute members of the Serbian gov't •demands are deliberately unreasonable, Austrians want war to crush Serbia and restore order in Bosnia
composition of the workforce
•changed; thousands of women were recruited into fields that had previously excluded them •women became symbolic of the many changes brought by the Great War •In Germany 1/3 of the labor force in heavy industry was female by the end of war
The home front
•costs of war was staggering so bureaucrats and industrialists led the effort to mobilize the home front focussing all parts of nicety on the single goal of milady victory
Railroads
•did not make war more mobile •took men to front, but mobility ended there, machine guns and barbed wire gave well supplied end entrenched defenders an enormous advantage but logistics stymied generals' efforts to regain a war of movement
Direct cause of America's entry into war
•direct cause was German U-boat •Germany had gambled that unrestricted submarine warfare would cripple Britain's supply lines and win the war, but by attacking neutral and unarmed American ships, Germany only provoked an opponent it could not afford to fight •Germany correctly suspected that British were clandestinely receiving war supplies from U.S passenger ships, and on Feb 1, 1917 kaiser's ministers announced that they would sink all ships on sight without warning •American public intercepted telegram from Germany's foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman, stating that Germany would support a Mexican attempt to capture American territory if the United States entered the war •U.S cut off diplomatic relations with Berlin, and on April 6, President Woodrow Wilson requested and received a declaration of war by congress
Ottoman Empire
•ended with two new results: •creation of the modern Turkish free state and a new structure for British and French colonial rule •as territories were taken from Ottomans, Greece chose to seize some by force, effort was successful at first but the Turks counterattacked driving out Greek forces by 1923and creating the modern state of Turkey under the leadership of General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
propaganda
•escalated to sustain war efforts, fanning old hatreds and creating new ones •atrocities against civilians came in its wake •Minorities living in the crumbling Russian, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires were especially vulnerable •Jewish populations in Russia had lived in fear of pogroms before 1914, now they were attacked by Russian soldiers who accused them of encouraging the enemy
United States entry
•final turning point of the war, gave a quick, colossal boost to British and french morale, while severely undermining Germany's •America had supported the Allies financially throughout the war, but it's official intervention undeniably tipped the scales •U.S created fast and efficient wartime bureaucracy •food, and supplies crossed the Atlantic under armed protection of the U.S navy, system of convoys effectively neutralized the threat of German submarines to Allied merchant ships
Nivelle offensive
•french general, Robert Nivelle, promised to break through the German offensive lines with overwhelming man power •Nivelle offensive failed immediately with first day casualties like those of the Somme
Lusitania
•german submarine U-20 without warning torpedoed the passenger liner Lusitania, which was secretly carrying war supply •killed 1,198 people including 128 Americans •attack provoked animosity of U.S and Germany was forced to promise that it would no longer fire without warning
Marie Stopes
•opened a birth control clinic in Londin in 1921
Easter Sunday 1916
•group if nationalists revolted in Dublin •insurgents plans to smuggle in arms from Germany failed and they had few delusions of achieving victory •British army arrived with artillery and machine guns; shelled parts of Dublin and crushed the uprising within a week •revolt was a military disaster but striking political success •martydom of "Easter Rebels" damaged Britian's relationships with its Irish catholic subjects •deaths galvanized cause of Irish nationalism
Universal suffrage
•had been one of the most controversial issues in European politics before the war •at the end of the flighting it came in a legislative rush •Britain was first off the mark, granting the vote to all men and women over 30 in the Representation of the People act •U.S gave women right to vote with 19th amendment the following year
Financing the war
•heavy obstacle •millitary spending soared to half of each nations budget during war, gov't had to borrow money or print more of it •Allied nations borrowed heavily from British who borrowed even more from the United States leaving Britain with a 4.2 billion debt •situation was worse for Germany which faced a total blockade of money and goods, in an effort to get around this predicament German gov't funded it's war effort largely by increasing the money supply, amount of paper money in circulation increased by over 1,000 percent during the war triggering a dramatic rise in inflation
Government propaganda
•important to the recruitment effort •war had been sold to people on both sides of the conflict as both morale and righteous crusade
Feb 1917 revolt
•in Petrograd revolt began on International Women's day, Feb 23rd •loosely organized march of women demanding food, fuel, and political reform •march was the latest wave of demonstrations and strikes that had swept through the country during winter months, within a few days unrest spiraled into mass strike of 30,000 people •Nicholas II sent in police and military forces to quell the disorder but when nearly 60,000 troops in petrograd multiplied and joined the revolt what was left of Tsar's power evaporated •Nicholas II abdicated the throne on March 2nd
war opportunities
•in some cases war brought opportunities •middle class women said war broke down restrictions on their lives
The Triple Entente
•later the allied •allience of Britian, France, and Russia
General Henri Pétain
•led French as they pounded the Germans with artillery and received heavy bombardment in return
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (lenin)
•member of the middle class who had been expelled from university for engaging in radical activity •spent three years as political prisoner in Siberia, after that from 1990 until 1917 he lived and wrote in exile •believed that the development of Russian capitalism made socialist revolution possible •argued that to bring revolution Bolsheviks needed to Bolsheviks needed to organize on behalf of the new class of industrial workers •despite being a minority well into 1917 Lenins Bolsheviks dedication to single goal of revolution and their tight organization gave then tactical advantage over larger and more loosely organized opposition panels •as conditions in Russia deteriorated lenin's call for "Peace, land, and bread now" and "All power to the soviets" won the Bolshevik's support from workers, soldiers, and peasants
the front lines
•morale fell as war-weary soldiers began to see the futility of their commanders strategies •mutiny was non political
the Schlieffen Plan
•named for Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff from 1890 to 1905 •called for attacking France first to secure a quick victory that would neutralize the Western front and free the german army to fight in Russia in the east, Germans would invade through Belgium and sweet down through northwestern France to fight a decisive battle near Paris •plan overestimated the army's physical and logistical capabilities, speed of operation was too much or soldiers and supply lines to keep up with •fearing Russians would move faster then expected German commanders altered the offensive plan by dispatching some troops to the east instead of committing the all to assault on France
Home Bill of 1920
•new home bill was enacted in 1920, establishing separate parliaments for the Catholic south of Ireland and for Ulster, the northeastern countries where the majority population was protestant •leaders of Dáli Éireann (Irish assembly) which had proclaimed an Irish republic in 1918 and therefore had been outlawed by britian rejected the bill but accepted a treaty that granted dominion status to the Catholic Ireland in 1921
United States
•new status was rooted in economic development of the second industrial revolution during the 19th cent. •during the war American intervention had decisively broken the military-economic deadlock •In the wars aftermath, American industrial culture, engineering, and financial networks loomed very large on the European continent
new weapons
•new weapons added to the frightening dimensions of daily warfare •besides artillery, new machine guns, and barbed wire new instruments of war now included exploding bullets, liquid fire, and poison gas •gas in particular brought visible change to the battle-front; first effectively used by Germans at second battle of Ypres •poison gas was not only physically devastating but also physchomogically disturbing
Germany's goal at Verdun
•not necessarily to take the city, but rather to break French morale at a moment if critical weakness •German general Erich von Falkenhayn said the offensive would "compel the French to throw in every man they have
verdun
•one of the bloodiest battles of all •began with a German attack on the French stronghold of verdun, near France's eastern boarder in Feb 1916 •verdun had little strategic importance but quickly became a symbol of France's strength and was defended at all costs •one million shells were fired on the first day of battle, inaugurating a ten month struggle of back and forth fighting offensives and counteroffensives of intense ferocity at enormous cost and zero gain •germans relied on large teams of horses, 7,000 of which were killed in a day •by the end of June over 400,000 French and german soldiers were dead •in the end advantage fell to the French who survived and who bled the Germans as badly as they suffered themselves
Testament of youth
•one of the most famous autobiographies of war •author—> Vera Brittain, recorded the dramatic new social norms that that she and others forged during the rapid changes of wartime
The Paris Peace conference
•opened in January 1919, moment that dramatized just how much the world had been transformed by the war and the decades that preceded it •American president Woodrow Wilson played such a prominent role which marked the rise of the United States as a world power •some 30 nations sent delegates, reflection of: the scope of the war, heightened national sentiment and aspiration, and the tightening of international communication and economic ties in the latter part of the 19th century •five separate treaties were signed, one with each of the defeated nations: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria
Soviets
•other center of power •Russian term for local councils elected by workers and soldiers •Since 1905 socialists had been active in organizing these council •Soviet reemerged after 1917 led by well known socialist Leon Trotsky and asserted claim to be the legitimate political power in Russia; increasingly powerful soviets pressed for social reform
Autocratic Russia
•plauged by internal difficult could not sustain the political strains of extended warfare •once war broke out Tsar insisted on personally commanding troops leaving gov't in hands of his court, especially his wife Alexandra and her eccentric spiritual mentor and faith healer Grigori Rasputin
Tsar Nicholas II
•political authority had been shaky for many years, undermined by his unpopular actions following the October revolution of 1905 and his efforts to erode the minimal political power he had granted the Duma, Russia's parliament •corrpution the royal court further tarnished the tsar's image
T. E. Lawrence
•popularized the Arabs guerrilla actions •when one of the senior Bedouin aristocrats, the emir Abdullah, captured the strategic port of Aqaba in July 1917, Lawrence took credit and entered popular mythology as "Lawrence of Arabia"
Europe's colonies
•provided and material support •Britain in particular benefited from its vast network of colonial dominations and dependancies bringing in soldiers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa •Nearly 1.5 million Indian troops served as British forces
Treaty of Versailles
•settlement with Germany •required Germany to surrender the "lost provinces" of Alsace and Lorraine to France and give up territories to Denmark and the new state of Poland •gave Germany's coal mines in the Saar basin to France for 15 years, at which point the German gov't could buy them back •Germany's province of East Prussia was cut off from the rest of its territory and the port of Danzig, where the majority of the population was German, was put under the administrative control of the League of Nations and the economic domination of Poland •disarmed Germany, forbid a German air force, and reduced its navy to a token force to match an army capped at 100,000 volunteers •held Germany and its allies responsible for the loss and damage suffered by the Allied gov't and their citizens, Germany would be forced to pay massive reparations •Germans deeply resented these harsh demands
expectations of the politicians and generals
•soon to be disproved •military planners foresaw a short, limited, and decisive war; thought that a modern economy simply could not function amid a sustained war effort and that a modern economy could not function amid a sustained war effort and that modern weaponry made protracted war impossible •placed bets on site and speed, but were unable to respond to the uncertainty and confusion of the battlefield
Total War
•term intro cued to describe intense mobilization of society •gov't propagandists insisted that civilians were as important as soldiers, and in many ways they were
Bolsheviks in power
•took opportunity to rapidly consolidate their position •first moved against all political competition, immediately expelled parties that disagreed with their actions •followed through on provisional governments promise to elect a Constituent Assembly, but when they did not win a majority in elections they refused to let the assembly reconvene •ruled as a one party dictatorship •approved the spontaneous redistribution of nobel's land to peasants without compensation to their former owners •most important new gov't sought to take Russia out of war
Russia after the collapse of the Monarchy
•two parallel centers of power emerged, each with it's own objectives and policies •first was a provisional gov't organized by leaders in the Duma and composed of mainly middle-class liberals: hoped to establish a democratic system under constitutional rule •Main task was to set up national election for constituent assembly and redirect power into hands of local officials •soviets= other center of power
Conscripting citizens
•wartime governments had to mobile men and money •conscripting citizens and mustering colonial troops became increasingly important •eventually France called up 8 million: almost 2/3rds of Frenchmen ages 18 to 40 •by summer of 1918 half Britain's army was under the age of 19
Leon Trotsky
•well known socialist •sneered at moderate socialists who walked out to protest what they saw as an illegal seizure of power
British and French trenches
•wet, cold, and filthy •rain turned dusty corridors into squalid pits and flooded the floors up to waist level •soldiers lived with lice and large black rats •threat of enemy fire was constant: 7,000 British men were killed or wounded daily, known as wastage
Grigori Rasputin
•won tsarina's favor by treating her hemophiliac son, and used his influence to operate corrupt and self aggrandizing schemes
Armenian communities in Turkey
•worst atrocities came against Armenian community in Turkey •attacked by Allies at Gallipoli and at war with Russians to the north, the Turkish gov't turned on it's Armenian subjects, labeling them a security risk •orders came down for "relocation" and relocation became genocide, Armenian leaders were arrested, Armenian men were shot, and entire Armenian villages were force marched to the south, robbed and beaten to death along the way, over the corse of the war a million Armenians died
