HI302 - WPR 1

Battle of Port Arthur

- 1904 marked the commencement of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers on the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement of major surface combatants the following morning; further skirmishing off Port Arthur would continue until May 1904. -The battle itself ended inconclusively, though later events would result in the war ending in a Japanese victory.

Russia 1914

- Allies: Britain, France, Serbia - Enemies: Germany, Austria-Hungary Plan: a plan developed by the Russians which has an "A" variant for war against Austria-Hungary and a "G" variant for war against Germany. Another variant prepared for war with both. The plan cleverly employed a staged mobilization scheme that allowed the Russians to put men into the field as they became available. One Russian army group headed towards the Carpathian Mountains, forcing Austro-Hungarians to order forces away from Serbia in order to defend the empire's agricultural heartland in the Hungarian plains. The Russians also advanced on the German front, winning the battle of Gumbinnen on August 20 and threatening the heartland of East -Ready: slow mobilization, but not as slow as the Russo-Japanese War

Austria-Hungary 1914

- Allies: Germany, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria - Enemies: France, UK, *Russia*, *Serbia* - Plan: get Germany in the war to fend off Russia and Serbia, but Germany needed us to fend off Russia while they worked in the West - Ready: poor mobilization, fell back to fortified positions which caused a stagnant force, soldiers were not all inclined to the war effort

Serbia 1914

- Allies: Russia (worried that their crown will be next to be killed by nationalists) , France, Greece - Rivals: Austria-Hungary (Serbia wanted to have independence and Austria-Hungary was trying to insert influence in the Balkans), Germany, Ottoman Empires - Plan: rely on the allies, specifically Russia to back them up

Ending War in the East

- Although the Russians had readily signed an armistice in 1917, their chief negotiator at the peace talks at Brest-Litovsk, Leon Trotsky, balked at Germany's peace terms, which called for annexation of large amounts of Russian territory as well as independence for the Baltic States and the Ukraine -Trotsky espoused a policy of "Neither War nor Peace": maintaining the armistice but refusing to conclude a formal peace treaty. Trotsky hoped to buy time for the Communists to solidify their position in Russia and gather strength before renewing the inevitable struggle against the imperialists -When the Germans grew impatient with Trotsky's stalling tactics and demanded that a final settlement be signed immediately, Trotsky abruptly announced that Soviet Russia declared the war over and, without signing anything, simply walked out of the negotiations on 28 January 1918 - Hindenburg and Ludendorff had the final say in virtually all matters. They easily convinced Kaiser Wilhelm II of the necessity for military action, and the Kaiser issued orders for Ober Ost to begin military action against Russia - Hoffmann launched his offensive on 18 February 1918, striking simultaneously south into the Ukraine and north into Estonia, areas long coveted by pan-German expansionists and known to be anti-Bolshevik - The Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918, formally bringing the Great War to an end in the East. - The terms were harsh: ~Russia lost Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, the Ukraine, Belarus and territory in the Caucasus ~German forces occupied most of these territories, and while they allowed them limited autonomy, it was clear that the new nations would be virtual vassal states of a greater German

Toward Armstice

- By mid-October British forces had begun to make rapid progress in the north while the French Army approached the critical Lille to Sedan railway. Without that railway, the Germans could not possibly hope to supply their armies. The Germans needed to find a way to end the war before they had to surrender unconditionally - Hoping to create a better post-war world, Wilson had issued the Fourteen Points in January, 1918; to the British and the French, they reflected an American naiveté about Europe and the way that relations between European powers worked - The Fourteen Points called for: National self-determination, which implied both an end to the European overseas empires and the redrawing of the map of Europe in ways that would place small, weak states on Germany's borders. The Germans delude themselves into thinking that they would lose the war but might still emerge with the Franco-British alliance weakened, the Royal Navy no longer a threat to German overseas trade, rough equality of post-war military spending, and the British and French losing their empires - On 6 October the new German government led by Prince Max of Baden contacted Wilson asking for peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Wilson, encouraged by the tone of the note and by the fact that the moderate Prince Max, and not the generals or the kaiser, had sent it, unwisely responded enthusiastically - 8 October, Foch proposed to the Allied governments conditions for an armistice that included: ~Liberation of all occupied territory, including Alsace-Lorraine ~Bridgeheads over the Rhine river to place Allied troops deep into German soil ~German agreement to pay for the costs of occupying the bridgeheads ~All war material and supplies left in place when the Germans retreated ~All railway rolling stock in the occupied territories turned over to the Allies ~All industrial sites in France, Belgium, and the bridgeheads abandoned without damage - On 25 October, Pershing reported to Washington that the Germans could not recover from their current decline and that the Americans and their allies should aim for complete victory

1914-1915 Stalemate and Response Fun Facts

- Defense will win as they are still and they are easier to resupply... Germany pulls back in the trenches to higher ground and gives up land (that was in France) they had soldiers shed blood for to win - Christmas Truce 1914: lead to decrease morale as they are supposed to be killing the people they spent time with the day before - Germany is fighting to continue to be a world power... mitteleuropa.. to be an economic power house and exporter -Artillery is a dominance

The Central Powers Tactics and Strategy

- Falkenhayn ordered the army in the west to adopt deep defensive positions along the high ground which it held in Flanders and France, overlooking the British and French and effectively forcing them to attack uphill for the next two years - Trenches enabled the German army to take advantage of their strategic central position and interior lines by holding in the west with the minimum necessary number of troops and freeing the maximum to exploit the greater operational opportunities in the east -The German Eastern offensive [The Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive] opened on 13 July and overran Poland. Warsaw fell on 5 August. By September the Russian army, which had lost 1.4 million men since May, stood with its back to Asiatic Russia and its front facing an area devastated by its own retreat and the mass migration that had accompanied it. For a monarchy fearful of further revolution, the case for negotiation ought to have been strong. Certainly Falkenhayn thought so. But the Tsar would not seek terms, and instead took over the supreme command of the army himself. For the moment Russia rallied. Falkenhayn's strategy for the war, to get a separate peace with Russia and concentrate his strength in the west in order to defeat Britain, began to unravel - By the end of November Serbia had been overrun. The Germans had turned tactical constraints to operational advantage, making the most stunning gains of the war. But they had not resolved their most intractable strategic problem, the need to fight on both eastern and western fronts with a single army. The Balkan campaign had only added to their difficulties. They now confronted a southern front which stretched from the Italy to the Ottoman empire

The Americans in the Allied Counterattack

- Foch wanted Allied armies to apply as much pressure as they could all along the western front, using their new mechanized methods against a declining German enemy. Eventually, Foch assumed, the Germans would conclude that they could not win this new war of material - After the summer victory on the Marne, and with the full support and encouragement of President Wilson, Pershing demanded an American sector of the western front where American soldiers would receive their orders from American generals - As long as the Americans fought when and where he directed as part of an overall Allied strategy, Foch fully supported the creation of an American sector - Two divisions of African-American soldiers deployed to France as part of a strictly segregated system. In the vast majority of cases, white officers, most of them from the deep South, trained and commanded black soldiers whose fighting ability and very humanity they disparaged - Pershing broke his own rule against amalgamation when he gave the units of the 93rd Division to the French Army, where they served with honor and distinction once the French replaced their substandard equipment and changed their overly-harsh training regiment

Allied Plans for the 1918 Campaign

- Georges Clemenceau(France) developed a defense-in-depth along their fronts, similar to the German "elastic defense." His intent was to contain the forthcoming German offensive and prolong the fight long enough for the Americans to deploy in strength, and for French industry to churn out the masses of tanks necessary for a counteroffensive - The American Expeditionary Forces were the wild-card in all of the major adversaries' calculations, as the vast untapped reservoir of American manpower and production had the potential to tip the scales irrevocably in favor of the Entente - Though an AEF division was roughly twice the size of an Allied or German division, the AEF still lacked a corps and army structure, and essential support elements generally lacked heavy weapons. The good news for the Americans, though, was that the French Army provided extensive training and supplied the modern weaponry, including artillery, automatic weapons, tanks and aircraft, which transformed the U.S. Army into a modern fighting force capable of taking its place in the Allied battle-line -The coming year's campaign, and indeed the war itself, thus came down to whether or not Germany could defeat Britain and France, and thereby win the war, before the Americans could take the field

The Great Battle in the West Begins

- Germany's bid for victory in the Great War began in the West on 21 March 1918 as Ludendorff initiated Operation "Michael," the greatest German offensive since the opening weeks of the war - The German gunners delivered a terrific bombardment for a mere five hours, then shifted their fires in a creeping barrage toward the enemy's secondary and tertiary defensive positions. At the instant the guns shifted fires off the frontline the Stürmtruppen, which had audaciously crept to within yards of the British trenches, suddenly emerged from out of the dense clouds of gas and fog, and leapt into the trenches, annihilating the defenders - The first day of Operation "Michael" was an astonishing German success. The German offensive gained as much territory in one day as the British had captured in four months on this same battlefield in 1916, and at a fraction of the cost in lives. The advance resumed at a steady pace the next day, and then on March 23rd the last pockets of resistance in the center and south evaporated and the Stürmtruppen pushed relentlessly forward - The danger was that if the British retreated north, and Pétain re-positioned south, a yawning gap would open between their armies, and the Germans would defeat them in detail - The very scale of "Michael's" success was challenging Ludendorff and his commanders: Their troops continued to gain ground, but the infantry advance outpaced the ability of the German gunners to displace forward with their artillery pieces and stockpiles of ammunition - Although Ludendorff recognized the potential of these unexpected opportunities in the south and center, he remained focused on the northern sector, and in particular on Arras, which was the most heavily defended section of the British line ~ Ludendorff's decision dissipated his attacking strength along three separate, and non-supporting, axes of advance ~ Worse, his main effort was directed at Arras rather than Amiens, which connected the British and French armies with one another ~If the Germans gained possession of Amiens, they would decouple the two main Allied armies on the Western Front, leaving them isolated and vulnerable -Operation "Mars" began on 28 March with the reinforced 17th Army and elements of the heretofore unengaged Sixth Army attacking in a pincer movement to cut off and capture Arras. British General Byng's Third Army held this sector and, thanks to reinforcements from Haig, he arrayed his forces in a defense in depth ~ With the bulk of his reserves already committed in the fight for Arras, Ludendorff had little to support the attack on Amiens ~The German advance stalled at the village of Villers-Brettonneux, located on high ground just east of Amiens ~The capture of that town would have allowed the Germans to bring their heavy guns to bear on Amiens to support and assault on the town - The fight continued back and forth until Ludendorff finally called off the attritional struggle and ordered his exhausted divisions to stand down, with both Villers-Brettoneux and Amiens still in Allied hands. Operation Michael was over *Tactical success did not translate to strategic success

Passchendaele

- Haig remained confident that his British Expeditionary Force (BEF) could still salvage the situation and deliver a devastating blow to the Germans. He believed that the previous year's battles had greatly weakened the Germans (which they had), and that therefore the time was ripe for an all-out offensive in the British sector - When a limited British attack in Flanders in June 1917 succeeded in seizing Messines Ridge at relatively low cost, his suspicions were confirmed ~ Haig believed that a full-scale offensive in Flanders could smash through the German defenses. He would then exploit the breakthrough and drive up the coast of Belgium to clear the Channel ports and eliminate German U-boat bases there - The Battle of Passchendaele (aka Third Ypres) began on 31 July 1917 after an intensive three-day bombardment by over 3,000 British guns ~General Hubert Gough's British Fifth Army surged forward as the British Second Army and French First Army launched limited attacks in support of the main effort ~ The British offensive initially appeared successful as the German front-line trenches were quickly seized ~ However, as during the Nivelle Offensive, the main German defenses were further back and when the British attempted to move forward to exploit their early success, they encountered fierce resistance and counter-attacks, and their advance stopped cold ~ As the British attempted to consolidate and build up combat power to renew the attack, the weather turned against them as torrential rains soaked the battlefield for days on end washing out roads and turning the battlefield into a sodden mess ~ The situation was made worse by the intensive artillery barrages of both sides, which destroyed the natural drainage system of this low-lying land, which was only a few feet above sea-level ~ As a result the battlefield became a vast morass of mud which was only traversable along a few well defined and reinforced tracks, which the German artillery quickly zeroed in on ~ Even the smallest tactical movements became an almost insurmountable challenge in this environment, and any thought of a swift breakthrough that would achieve operational success drowned in this sea of mud * As at the Somme the previous year, the intended breakthrough battle had been turned into a grim struggle of attrition, with advances measured in yards and casualties in the tens of thousands

East v West 1915-1916

- In 1915-16 both the Allies and their enemies would devote considerable diplomatic effort trying to construct a favorable "southern" front - The Central Powers enjoyed the advantages of what Jomini had called "interior lines" - By contrast, the Entente operated on exterior lines. It encircled the Central Powers, but it could only convert that position into a strategic advantage if it could coordinate its efforts in time and space - At the end of 1915 and again at the end of 1916, it planned to attack simultaneously on all fronts around the periphery of Mitteleuropa, so that the German and Austro-Hungarian reserves would be exhausted as they were shuttled from east to west to south, from one crisis to another - While the Central Powers could move troops by train along a short chord between two places, the Entente had mostly to do so by sea, following long routes around the circumference of Europe and through waters in which troopships were subject to attack by torpedoes and mines - The reality was that no power could afford to abandon one entirely in order to focus on the other. The core issue was the relationship between fronts -Erich von Falkenhayen's (Germany) solution to this conundrum ending the stalemate was to knock out France, and so leave Britain without a continental foothold. To free up German manpower committed in the east and focus resources in the west, he wanted to negotiate a compromise peace with Russia - In November, following the opening of hostilities with the Ottoman empire, Britain had promised Russia control of the Black Sea straits and of Constantinople after the war, so promising to fulfill one of Russia's most cherished ambitions: access to the open seasmfrom a warm-water port and a secure trade route for its grain exports

The German Army's New Defensive Doctrine in the West

- Ludendorff issued a new regulation called The Principles of Command in the Defensive Battle in Position Warfare ~The new system stated that a defender must not hold ground at all costs, but instead should develop a "defense in depth" that would absorb the attacker's blows and then utilize aggressive local counter-attacks to drive the enemy back and keep him off balance ~The new system became known as the "elastic defense" - In the "elastic defense" a division deployed a minimal force on the front line, with the bulk of its forces in secondary and tertiary positions several kilometers deep ~This new deployment ensured that the enemy's preparatory bombardment, which invariably was his strongest and most accurate, fell on defenses that were only sparsely occupied ~In addition, the defending division maintained powerful forces in reserve organized for counter-offensive actions, which were the heart of the new system

Germany's Second Offensive

- Ludendorff opened a new offensive ("Georgette," also known as "The Lys Offensive") against them on April 9th, this time further north in Flanders, along the Lys River, with the intention of breaking through and capturing the rail center of Hazebrouck. There were problems after initial success: ~The Germans had to cross a labyrinth of bogs and marshes which made their guns, supply wagons and heavy equipment road-bound ~Heavy rains had turned the battlefield into a sodden morass ~The British made a series of skillful withdrawals and put up a stiff fight - The Germans captured the important high ground of Messines Ridge and Mt. Kemmel, but lacked reserves to exploit the success - Georgette" (like "Michael") was a tactical victory, but an operational and strategic failure - Ludendorff concluded that the British were on their last legs and that only the unexpected arrival of large numbers of French divisions in the battles had frustrated his plans. Therefore he determined to clear his battlefront of these French troops before launching a final knock-out blow to the BEF - Ludendorff ordered Army Group German Crown Prince to launch a diversionary attack (Operation "Blücher") against the French sector in Champagne, along the Chemin des Dames Ridge, under 150 km from Paris ~He believed that an attack here would cause the French to panic and pull their divisions out of the British sector in order to defend their capital. When that occurred, he could then execute his final blow against the weakened BEF in Flanders

Battle of Tsushima

- May 27-28, 1905 in the Tsushima Straight between Korea and southern Japan. - In this battle the Japanese fleet under Admiral Togo Heihachiro destroyed two-thirds of the Russian fleet, under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, which had traveled over 33,000 km to reach the Far East. - "The battle of Tsushima is by far the greatest and the most important naval event since Trafalgar". This was naval history's only decisive sea battle fought by modern steel battleshit fleets, the first naval battle in which radio played a critically important role, it has been characterized as the "dying echo of the old era - for the last time in the history of naval warfare ships of the line of a beaten fleet surrendered on the high seas

Summarize the reasons for victory and defeat in the major European wars of the late 19th century.

- Mechanization, in the form of steamships and railroads, allowed for unprecedented troop replenishment and transportation - In the form of weaponry, rifling allowed for more accurate artillery and direct fire, and the minie ball and bolt action rifle changed the shape of warfare on the ground due to their advanced range and accuracy - In the form of communications, the advancement in newspaper printing and telegraphy affected participation - Management advances also changed the shape of warfare; larger wars required less heroic leadership and more logistical coordination. - More complicated, efficient, systematic, and ongoing planning was required to win wars. Participation, in the form of much larger, more mobile armies made up of stakeholders who participated for patriotic reasons, also played an important role.

Battle of Verdun

- On 21 February 1916, the hitherto relatively quiet sector of the Western Front around the French fortress of Verdun suddenly sprang violently to life. 1,400 German artillery pieces began firing in earnest on the French front lines, artillery positions, lines of communication and fortified positions around the fortress. Within hours, these lines had all but ceased to exist, obliterated by the most intensive artillery bombardment the war had yet seen -Falkenhayn felt Verdun was an object for which the French would be politically compelled to fight. If the Germans could take the heights on the east bank, they would be able to place observed artillery fire (far more effective than unobserved fire) down on the expected French counteroffensive. This fact was central to Falkenhayn's conception: the basic purpose of his planned initial attacks was to force the French to counter-attack into the meat-grinder he intended to prepare for them -The infantry patrols sent forward to assess damage simply walked into the French positions -At Verdun, on 11 July Falkenhayn ordered the 5th Army to go "strictly on the defensive," so that he could shift resources to the Somme. Although local attacks continued until Falkenhayn's replacement by Paul von Hindenburg on 29 August, these were designed to improve existing positions, rather than to achieve far-reaching goals

The Black Day of the German Army

- On 24 July, with the Marne battle still raging, Foch authorized British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig to launch an attack near the critical rail juncture of Amiens Instead of giving away the location of the attack with days of preregistered artillery fire, at Amiens the British would use 12 tank battalions to provide fire support for specially-trained infantrymen who would strike key points on the enemy line - The Amiens plan aimed to win the battle with surprise instead of mass. Careful planning and a fortuitous early morning fog on 8 August helped to make it a complete success. In just a few days the Canadians advanced 21 kilometers, the Australians 18 kilometers, and the French 13 kilometers - 8 August was labeled "the black day of the German Army." After the twin defeats on the Marne and at Amiens, Ludendorff and the German high command knew that they had lost their last chance to win the war - "[The Germans] no longer have even a dim hope of victory on this western front. All they hope for now is to defend themselves long enough to gain peace by negotiation"

The Peace Offensive

- On 24 June 1918 German Foreign Minister Richard von Kühlmann addressed the Reichstag and told them that the war could not be decided by purely military means, but rather also required diplomatic efforts and talks with the Allies - pushed for a peace treaty ~The Allies were in no mood to negotiate a peace that would, in their view, be tantamount to accepting German domination of Europe ~The German Right condemned Kühlmann and adopted the slogan "No peace without victory" -Ludendorff thus planned his next major offensive intending to finish off France and to destroy the nascent American army in its crib. His target was the immense Reims salient ~The bulk of the AEF divisions, and a critical mass of French divisions, were in this salient. If they could be cut off and destroyed, France would fall and Ludendorff could then unleash his final blow against the British in Flanders to win the war ~German press impulsively christened the next offensive Friedenstürm ("peace offensive") _In the main attack (Operation "Reims"), the German First and Third armies would assault the French Fourth Army holding the eastern portion of the salient, while the German Seventh Army launched a supporting attack (Operation "Marneschutz") against the French Fifth Army on the western face of the salient _However, unlike "Michael" and "Blücher," operational security for "Friedenstürm" was extremely poor Friedenstürm was a sobering defeat that consumed the last of Ludendorff's precious reserve of assault divisions. The American forces, which seemed to be everywhere now, fought extremely well

Americans Enter the Battle

- On 25 May 1918 French and American artillery batteries bombarded Cantigny. Then on 28 May the US First Division attacked, supported by French armored units, flamethrower teams, and aircraft. The Americans stormed the town in a short, sharp engagement, and then spent three days repelling a series of German counter-attacks before finally claiming it for their own -As the Germans advanced on Paris in June 1918, Pershing gave the French Army additional support by placing the U.S. 2nd Division and elements of the U.S. 3rd Division under French corps and army command in order to reinforce the sagging lines along the Marne - On 6 June 1918 the French launched a limited counter-attack to push the Germans away from Paris. The U.S. 2nd Division spearheaded this assault and attacked the entrenched German positions at Vaux and the Bois de Belleau ("Belleau Wood") - After three weeks of battle, the 2nd Division wrested the wood, and Vaux, from German hands. The American soldiers and marines, fighting on the European continent for the first time in their history, proved that they were as good, or better, than their European counterparts

New Warefare

- Once the Germans evacuated their trenches and retreated into open country, the Allies could take full advantage of their technological superiority and the command and training systems that supported them. Armor, aviation, and artillery could now work together much more efficiently than in years past - In the fall of 1918 the Americans prepared for their first major campaign as an independent army. They targeted the St. Mihiel salient, a 200-square-mile triangle of territory that jutted out into Allied lines and had disrupted rail and road communications for four years - they began the attack on 11 September 1918 - The key to the battle was the high ground of Montsec, just inside the southern face of the salient -Skeptics charged that the Americans only won at St. Mihiel because the Germans had already planned to evacuate the salient as soon as the Allies attacked it - At the relatively low cost of 7,000 casualties, the Americans largely cleared the salient in just three days. - They captured 14,000 Germans, killed or wounded 2,300 more, and seized 450 artillery pieces - The Americans also scored an important symbolic and political victory: they showed that they had come of age and could play an important role in the final drive to win the war

Summarize and evaluate the principal arguments concerning the causes of the First World War.

- One argument claims that the war was a shock, the result of a minor crisis in the Balkans, in Europe's remote south-eastern corner, which was allowed to get out of control, and then shattered a continent shaped by shared values, economic interdependence and cosmopolitan cultures -Another revolves around a change in the balance of power with a rising, united Germany: ~For many Germans the excitement generated by its growth suggested that they would shape the twentieth century, just as France (thanks to the French Revolution) and Britain (thanks to its empire and its industrial primacy) had shaped the nineteenth -German historians have come to see Germany's role in the origins of the war in terms of continuity: ~Prussia, a minor kingdom at the beginning of the eighteenth century, had emerged through the military achievements of Frederick the Great. The army was both the embodiment of the state and its protector, loyal more to the institution of the monarchy

Battle of Mukden

- One of the largest land battle to be fought before World War I, the last and the most decisive major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, was fought from 20 February to 10 March 1905 between Japan and Russia near Mukden in Manchuria. - The Russian forces, numbering more than 340,000 were under General Alexei Nikolajevich Kuropatkin, fought the attacking Imperial Japanese Army forces numbering more than 280,000, led by Marshal Marquess Oyama Iwao. -Involving more than 600,000 combat participants, it was the largest battle since the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, and also the largest modern-era battle ever fought in Asia before World War II.

1914 Extra Facts

- Ottoman Empire joined Germany's side due to fear of Russian ambitions in the Balkans - Germans added entrenchments, barbed wire, FA and concealed machine guns to their terrain while on the defense... Trenches required great supply chains... Germans knew the opposing side had to attack to win so they invested in a good trench system - Royal Navy aided in moving supplies *Central Powers had the limited resources *After the First Battle of the Marne, both sides "raced to the seas," in another attempt to turn the other's flank... The French held out Ypres though had little tactical advantage it boosted morale for the Entente powers... Territory that Germans occupied held a significant portion of France and Belgium's industrial wealth... nobody won the race to seas and lead to trench warfare

France 1914

- Plan XVII - a "scheme of mobilization and concentration" that was adopted by the French General Joseph Joffre in 1913, to be put into effect by the French Army in the event of war between France and Germany but was not 'a prescribed narrative for the campaign' or battle plan. Plan XVII was implemented as an offensive into Alsace-Lorraine. The German defense of Alsace-Lorraine turned out to be much better than expected and force proved to be a more and more meaningless concept in wars fought by modern, huge armies supplied by industrialized countries. - Ready: had the largest number of troops (2.8 million) - France was the only republic; they became allies with Russia due to a mutual desire to not let Germany become a great power.

UK 1914

- Plan: use Royal Navy to defend English Channel - Ready: yes, UK was cautious of Germany wanting ports so they had a strong Navy, BEF (British Expedition Force) : always ready volunteer force but not many people, was in the middle of colonization so they had a military formed, but they do have the smallest army due to not having a draft, but have a big navy - Did not have an automatic trigger for British involvement - Became Allies with France due to a fear of one power dominating Europe which has become Germany

America Enters the War

- President Woodrow Wilson reacted strongly to the new submarine campaign and broke diplomatic relations with Germany on 3 February 1917 - In a telegram German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann notified the embassy in Mexico that Germany was resuming unrestricted submarine warfare and anticipated war with the United States. Zimmermann instructed his embassy that, if war occurred, he was to: "make Mexico a proposal of alliance [against the United States] on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona - Germany's attempt to provoke a new U.S - Mexican conflict while simultaneously unleashing submarines to launch unrestricted attacks on shipping in international waters proved intolerable for the United States - Congress enthusiastically approved Wilson's request to declare war on 6 April 1917 - American economic assistance, and the superb United States Navy, made an immediate impact, but the U.S. Army remained more promise than fact throughout 1917

Germany 1914

- Schlieffen Plan: Germany was going to be in a two front war so they intended to defeat France then focus more efforts to Russia as they believed the railway system would make Russian mobilization slow. They evenly split forces. They intended to quickly capture Paris and lead to French surrender so the Germans could control the Southern Channel and the British would not get involved... plan is annihilation... before the war Germany wanted land and world dominance.... Plan failed so they transitioned to holding in the west and moving east... Balka recommends peace negotiations and is fired so this suggestion. - Ready: yes, they wanted the war to show dominance as a new power player - Problem: two front war which will split the Army between France and Russia

The Entente Tactics and Strategy

- The British strategists who suggested that the Entente should focus its military efforts for 1915 on the activation of the eastern front encountered two problems: 1. The first was the reality for France. German troops stood on French soil and it was the French army's duty, readily acknowledged by Joffre, to drive them out 2. The second problem was the fact that the British army was the junior partner in the alliance and had to accommodate Joffre's wishes - If "attrition" had a role in the context of British strategy in 1915, its most logical link was to the war at sea and the tightening of the allied blockade of Germany -French General Joffre rationalized partial offensives as a way to tie the Germans to the west and to leave them uncertain about allied intentions, while rendering them unable to concentrate forces for a major blow -French General Pétain: "There is no longer the 'decisive battle'. Success will come in the final analysis to the side which has the last man." His solution was a strict defensive with command so decentralized that it could respond to local circumstances - British General Rawlinson's response was what he called "bite and hold." The allies should launch limited offensives, well planned and sufficiently supported by artillery, to be sure of taking a "bite" out of the enemy's front line. They should then quickly prepare themselves to "hold" their gain against the subsequent German counterattack. The balance of loss in such exchanges would, he reckon, work against the Germans

Understand how the Russian Revolution created opportunities for Germany and increased risks for the Entente in 1918.

- The Provisional Government's foreign minister Pavel Miliukov secretly informed Britain and France that Russian war aims, including territorial ambitions and financial compensation, remained the same as they had been under the Czar. Although the tide of public sentiment was clearly against the war, there were still key individuals who supported Russia staying in the fight The Kerensky Offensive - Shortly after assuming the position of Minister of War in the newly formed Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky determined that it was imperative that the Russian Army resume offensive operations - Although the Russians made some initial headway in the opening days of their attack against the Austro-Hungarian units opposing them, their advance broke down when it encountered Hoffmann's carefully deployed German forces. As the Russian attack wavered, Hoffmann unleashed his six reserve divisions in a brilliantly-timed and perfectly executed counter-attack which shattered the spent Russian forces facing them - Lowers Russian morale further The Bolshevik Revolution - In November 1917 (October by the old Julian calendar still in use in Russia at that time) Lenin made his move as the Bolsheviks staged their own revolution against the Provisional Government, toppled Kerensky, and seized control - On 2 December 1917 a Bolshevik delegation arrived at the German-held city of Brest-Litovsk and signed an armistice that brought an end to active military operations in the East Preparing for the Showdown - Germany would be able to focus its immense military might solely on the Western Front, and the belief that final victory lay within their reach permeated the ranks - The Allies recognized this swing in fortunes as well, and braced themselves for the coming struggle - It was clear to everyone that Germany planned to launch an all-out offensive on the Western Front in the spring of 1918, and upon the outcome of that campaign hung the fate of the world

Second Battle of the Marne

- The failure of the German offensive on the Marne in mid-July, 1918 opened up a tremendous opportunity for Foch - The Allied Tenth Army commander, Foch's protégé Charles "The Butcher" Mangin sought to seize the opportunity by aggressively smashing into the exposed German flank before the Germans even knew he was there - On 18 July, Foch ordered Mangin to unleash a massive counterattack on the western side with the intention of caving in the badly exposed German flank -The Allies had a two-to-one advantage in artillery, in addition to 346 tanks and nearly complete control of the air. The violence of the attack, its unexpected direction, and the numerical superiority of the Allies shocked the Germans - The Second Battle of the Marne became one of the most important turning points of the First World War. Almost immediately, leaders on both sides understood that it had inaugurated a new phase in the war - Equally as important as the material victory on the Marne was the morale victory. The string of German battlefield successes had ended, and strategic leaders on both sides knew it

The Crisis: Operation Blucher May-June 1918

- The initial German assault swarmed up the slopes of the Chemin des Dames and penetrated through the very center of the Allied position along the ridge. The Stürmtruppen swept everything before them and drove deep into the French defense system, attacking headquarters and overrunning gun positions with apparent ease - On 30 May 1918 the Crown Prince's lead divisions reached the Marne River at a point just 100km east of Paris and the German Seventh Army secured crossing points along the river ~The Crown Prince halted any further southern advance, however, as he lacked sufficient force to secure his Army Group's already elongated flanks - With political pressure mounting in Paris, old tiger Clemenceau rose to the occasion. He appeared before a hostile Chamber to announce he would not abandon the capital. He reminded the delegates that he had served in Paris during the great siege of 1870 - 71 and announced he was prepared to do so again ~He denounced all defeatists and told the assembly "I will fight in front of Paris, I will fight in Paris, I will fight behind Paris."

Tactics Trump Strategy

- The most intricate problem of late 1914 was that strategic decision-making found itself unable to determine the war's outcome - The firepower revolution of the late nineteenth century, with the adoption of the machine gun, the magazine-fed smokeless-powder rifle, and the quick-firing field gun, meant that the techniques of field fortification acquired fresh purpose - Defenses were made of masonry and even reinforced concrete. In the competition between artillery and fortification, the former was winning, and both the cost and rapid obsolescence of the latter militated against its use

Explain how belligerents attempted to leverage new technologies to overcome the stalemate on the Western Front.

- The newest inventions—the submarine and the airplane—offered the prospects of extending the war beneath the sea to raid enemy commerce and into the heavens to bomb enemy homelands - In general the British and French attacks proved abortive and costly, as the German superiority in artillery and mortars gave them mastery of the battlefield - During the spring and summer of 1915, both sides on the Western Front sought to attack the enemies' homelands from the air. German Zeppelins bombed towns in southwest England and planes struck the French towns of Nancy and Verdun - In 1915 the French High Command, aware that the war was becoming a conflict of materiel, focused on French bomber forces to attack German industrial targets in a strategic bombing campaign intended to shorten the war. After the French bombed Karlsruhe in June in answer to German attacks, a vicious circle of reprisal and retaliation from the air began in 1915

Persistent War

- The victors were largely of two minds about how to treat Germany: Hardliners like French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau wanted to redress German power by imposing an indemnity, limiting the size of German military forces, and taking away territory in both Europe and overseas. Internationalists like Woodrow Wilson hoped that bringing Germany into global trade and diplomatic organizations like the League of Nations would remove the causes of war in the future. - The terms of the treaty struck most Germans as too harsh and most Frenchmen as too lenient. The former argued that they had opened negotiations on the basis of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, whose principles the treaty ignored. The latter contended that they had been far more lenient with the defeated Germans than the Germans had been to countries they had defeated like Romania and Russia - Most importantly, the treaties that resulted from the peace conference did not, and could not, address the persistent conflicts that the First World War bequeathed. The events of 1914-1918 opened a Pandora's box of violence that continues to affect the lives of people around the globe - Although the treaties that emerged from the war created instability and uncertainty, blaming the shortcomings of the treaties for the outbreak of the Second World War oversimplifies a complex picture. No simple or direct line connects the treaties to either the rise of fascism or the resumption of war in Europe in 1939

Explain how each belligerent's assumptions affected the conduct of their operations in 1914.

-(Moltke) Assumed Germany had to defeat France before the Russians came to the east, rapid movement through Belgium and Northern France would give Germany control of the southern coast of the English Channel, assumed France would surrender and Britain would not get involved, didn't account for Russia's growing railways -Failure to coordinate with allies: inability to influence great power discussions, most went south to deal with Serbia rather than north to defend from the Russians, Germans assumed they would have to invade Belgium in order to approach Paris in force, assumed Belgium would not put up resistance and the British Army would be unlikely to make a decisive difference, Belgium did resist and lead to support of British intervention -(Joffre ~ France) Assumed Germany was weak in Alsace and Lorrain but they weren't and they were hit with lots of artillery

Tactical Inovations

-By day snipers could pick off the careless, who exposed their heads above the parapet or who ventured out of the trench. But at night, when most raids were conducted, more primitive and less noisy weapons, including clubs and bayonets, were favored -The pressing tactical need was to provide attacking infantry with comparable organic firepower. In early 1915 the Germans created their first flame-thrower units, and over the course of the year light machine-guns went into production -Hankey and Churchill had both proposed the introduction of armored vehicles, using caterpillar tracks rather than wheels to enhance their cross-country performance. As mobile gun platforms, they could provide infantry with direct fire support, but could also crush wire and possibly bridge trenches -By 1915 batteries were firing indirectly, not directly, at their targets, and doing so at longer ranges. Training gunners took longer than training infantrymen, and the technical demands made of them increased as the war progressed. Higher quality intelligence, provided by aerial reconnaissance to identify the position of the enemy's guns, created opportunities for more precise fire, but they were not matched by the maps available in 1914 -Given the small number of guns for the length of the front (compared to later in the war), major offensives required artillery to be concentrated prior to an attack. Aerial reconnaissance was liable to spot this and so alert the defender -The lack of real-time communications was therefore the biggest constraint in turning tactical success into operational results. Field command naturally devolved forward to those who could see the situation on the ground, while the management needs of mass armies prompted

Imperialism and the Roots of the Great War-"Hank Wesseling"

-Europe in 1871 has many empires, which are large governments joining many small states together... the Ottoman Empire still exists... The Republic of France is the 3rd Republic and this is the republic that leads them to WW2 -In 1914 only two countries in Africa were independent of European rule

Describe the tactical, operational, and strategic significance of the battles of Tannenberg and the Marne.

-Germans expected the Russians to be slow to respond -Russia predicted Germany would send most troops to France, which they did, and created Plan 19A and 19G which employed a staged mobilization scheme (using railroads) that allowed the Russians to put men into the field as they became available -Germans had geography on their side and Masurian Lakes separated the two Russian field armies and their lines of communication ... Germany wanted to turn the Russian armies in on themselves and cut off reinforcements -Tannenberg: Germans struck Russian boat; Germans quickly attacked again at Masurian Lakes. Big operational victories but they were too far from big Russian cities to make them strategic victories -Marne: Germans planned envelopment in France similar to Tannenberg, Germans ended up retreating to high ground when a gap in their army was created by the French

Use the example of the Russo-Japanese War to discuss the logistical, organizational, and political requirements for waging war in the early 20th century.

-Support from Western financers helped Japan's wartime economy after winning near the Yalu River... however the Japanese public was no thrilled due to the high number of casualties. -Treat your opponent as an equal -Need buy in from the soldiers and the civilians

U-Boat Campaign 1918

-Was resolved, perhaps the most important adaptation taken by Britain in the U-boat campaign was the introduction of a convoy system to protect merchant shipping -proved incapable of preventing the Americans fron joining

European Imperialism Success (Why?):

1. It is peaceful at home so we can send soldiers overseas, this invites weakness so they cannot fully send their armies overseas (political situation) 2. Economic motives from resources such as rubber in the Belgian Congo 3. Technological Advances made war: (1) to have overseas colonies you have to have a navy to maintain communication, supply chains and other transportation, historical example is seen during the Crimean War when the British and French used naval powers to transport to the Crimean area. (2) Machine guns are an advantage over nonautomatic firearms. (3) Telegraph enables quicker communication on a tactical level on the battlefield, although many still depended on runners. This enables communication with the government that could be published for the public to see and respect the soldiers for conquering the new land. Reading about the glory of war encourages people to go overseas voluntarily to join the imperialistic efforts 4. Strategic holdings, for example the British holding Egypt for the use of the Suez canal 5. Social Darwinism (1859): kill or be killed, conquer, or be conquered. Survival of he fittest, eat or be eaten. Is your country a sheep or a wolf? European nations became wolves by being imperialistic. They also competed with other European nations who wanted the land as well.

Explain how military alliances, mobilization schedules, and diplomatic agreements influenced the potential for a major war in Europe in 1914.

Alliances and Diplomatic Agreements - The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand gave Vienna the opportunity to slap the Serbs down; however, military alliances complicated the situation: 1. Russia, bound to Serbia by pan-Slav sentiment and still angry at what it saw as the assault on its interests in the Ottoman empire caused by Austria-Hungary. Serbia effectively received its own "blank check" from Russia before it had to respond to Vienna's ultimatum. 2. So Austria-Hungary turned to its principal ally, Germany, the Kaiser responded by promising his support. At this point nobody in Germany seems to have expected a major war as a necessary or even probable consequence of the so-called "blank check" which its emperor had issued -France and Russia had been allies since 1891, and each of them had also reached understandings with Britain uniting the three powers in a loose alliance known as the "Triple Entente" -There were two reasons why a diplomatic agreement was not acceptable: 1. That Austria-Hungary could hardly pull back from the confrontation which it had precipitated with its south Slav neighbor and hope to sustain its status in the Balkans. If it simply postponed the local war they concluded it had to fight, it might find that when it next confronted a Balkan challenge, they would not have the unconditional offer of German support which it had secured on 5 July 2. That the German general staff, charged with defending a state in central Europe and possessed of long and vulnerable land frontiers to its west and its east, had been grappling, almost since Germany's creation, with the problem of how to fight a war simultaneously against France and Russia -The Triple Alliance, begun in 1879 by Germany and Austria-Hungary, was reinforced by Italy's addition in 1882. As a Mediterranean power, vulnerable to naval pressure, and possessed of a liberal constitution, Italy ought more logically to have been associated with the Anglo-French entente, and in the event would opt for it in 1915 -More surprising was the decision of Britain and Russia to settle their long-standing rivalries, particularly in Asia, in 1907. The Anglo-Russian entente undermined the hopes of a democratic alliance that the Anglo-French entente had fired in the Manchester Guardian. -If Britain failed to support both France and Russia in European diplomacy, it would reopen the competition with France in North Africa and with Russia in Asia: it could not afford to do that Mobilization GERMANY EASTERN FRONT - The Russians aimed to make their army three times the size of Germany's by 1917. Moltke could not afford to let Russian mobilization get too far ahead of Germany's and still be confident that he could cope with a two-front war -German army knew it could fight an effective defensive campaign in East Prussia, especially if the Austro-Hungarian army played its part against the Russians to the south in Galicia. WESTERN FRONT -To the west the Low Countries provided an accessible route into the heartland of France's industry, both bypassing the high ground of the Ardennes and the Vosges, and exploiting the most dense railway network in the world -The arguments against the invasion of Belgium were not military but political: as a neutral state, its integrity had been guaranteed by a treaty to which the major European powers, including Prussia, were collective signatories. For Britain, and eventually for the other Anglophone democracies of the world, including the United States, the defense of Belgium's integrity, and by extension the sanctity of treaty obligations and the rights of small nations, would became a legitimizing casus belli BRITAIN -To the British, who thought in strategic terms, the German invasion of Belgium presented a geopolitical threat to Britain and to the balance of power in Europe. If a mighty power dominated the Channel ports, Britain's own security and its maritime and trading links with the rest of the world would be endangered SELF-DEFENSE -Each of the original belligerents blamed the other side for "causing" the war—and which therefore ensured public acceptance General Sequence: 1. Austria-Hungary had been the victim of state-sponsored terrorism 2. Serbia was attacked by a mighty neighbor 3. Russia was also invaded by an Austro-Hungarian army 4. Russia in turn invaded Germany by way of East Prussia 5. Both Belgium and France were invaded by Germany 6. Each could see this war as one of national self-defense 7. Britain was the sole exception to this list - the nation was inspired to fight by Belgium and by an appeal to universal values and to the ideals of liberalism

Describe the strategies of annihilation, attrition, and exhaustion

Annihilation: aims to disarm the enemy by crushing his main armed force in a decisive battle.. it is assumed the defeated will seek peace on whatever terms he can get seeing he has little to no chance of winning... seeking to destroy the military capacity of the other army...Must have speed and strength Attrition: launching multiple attacks to grind away at the enemy's strength until they no longer had enough strength to fight... this is very costly and is usually only used when there was no other real choice... multiple attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy over time... the larger army can suffer more than the smaller army Exhaustion: Aims to wear down the enemy polity's will to continue fighting... generally it involves attacks on the enemy polity directly, aiming essentially to terrorize the enemy into submission... trying to get them to quit... takes a long time

The Hindenburg Line and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Australian general John Monash's plan: It involved using tanks to clear the region in front of the tunnel and heavy use of mustard gas to seal the two openings of the tunnel itself. Then Australian and American infantry would move forward in leapfrog pattern; when one unit tired, another would move past it. Finally, once the attack had weakened the Germans in the sector, troops from a fresh British division would conduct a final assault on the tunnel itself. - Pershing hoped to move quickly through the Argonne with a series of flanking movements directed at the heights of Montfaucon - He also knew that while the Germans had just five divisions in the sector, they could move as many as fifteen more into the Meuse-Argonne region in as little as three days. Speed, therefore, was of the essence However, the plan asked too much of largely inexperienced soldiers operating on undependable lines of supply. Liaison problems with both the French units in support and between American corps plagued the attack - Four days into the battle, American forces still had not moved the ten miles Pershing had set as the goal for day one - The difficult progress of the Americans amid high casualties attracted the attention of people around the world. Journalists began reporting tales of heroism like Sgt. Alvin York's capture of 132 Germans near the town of Châtel-Chéhéry and the dramatic stand by the so-called "Lost Battalion" of Maj. Charles W. Whittlesey, which found itself pinned down in a ravine for days - The sheer number of men the Americans made available gave Foch and the Allied high command strategic flexibility - The numbers of American troops and the confidence they projected made clear to the Allies that, despite the German gains, the Allies would win the war - Had the war extended into 1919, the Americans would undoubtedly have played an even larger role, as the only army on the western front growing in both quantity and quality

Road to War

Author's Main Argument - World War Two happened because Hitler's goals—acquisition of Lebensraum in the east anddestruction of Europe's Jews, absorption of Austria, destruction of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union—had eventually to meet resistance. The question was not whether there would be a war, but when—and how France and Britain would fit into Hitler's program - The demilitarized Rhineland was "the single most important guarantee of the peace of Europe,". By moving a mere three battalions into the demilitarized zone on 7 March 1936, Hitler achieved strategic gains for Germany and personal dominance over the Reichwehr's leaders, whose dire predictions of disaster, which continued even after the initial démarche evoked no French response, merely undermined their credibility in the Führer's eyes -While German generals feared French intervention, France was paralyzed by her military organization. There was no mechanism for deploying part of the reserve force, while complete mobilization promised dire economic consequences -Appeasement played to Hitler's strengths, however, by allowing him a series of remarkable diplomatic successes which strengthened Germany's strategic position without offering the western powers a compelling reason to risk war -Historians have seen the Spanish Civil War as a testing ground for fascist weapons and methods while paying less attention to the conclusions of Western observers Spain appeared to reinforce western confidence in relative power of the anti-tank gun over the tank Hitler originally planned to begin a war of conquest no later than 1943-5, because he feared the growing power of the United States, a country he believed to be controlled by Jews and to epitomize the seductive dangers of liberal consumerist democracy -German soldiers marched into Austria in March 1938, in a bloodless conquest that allowed post-war Austria, disingenuously, to proclaim itself as Hitler's "first victim" rather than Germany's political partner -British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain orchestrated a series of meetings to defuse the crisis, forcing him at Munich on 29 September 1938 to allow Czechoslovakia peacefully to cede the Sudetenland to Germany -Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 -Britain's promise to Poland also spurred Hitler to preempt a British deal with the Soviet Union -The resulting Russo-German Pact of 23 August 1939 gave Stalin half of Poland and some hope for a future war pitting -Britain and France against Germany and thereby contributing to Soviet security and communist expansion -The Russo-German pact also reassured the German generals (who generally favored war against their despised Polish neighbor) that, unlike in 1914, they would not face two major foes simultaneously -France and (as we shall see) Britain could not integrate foreign and military policy to the degree achieved by Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union. A liberal democracy naturally experiences more friction in such matters than a dictatorship - Plan D of 1933 and its 1935 revision (Plan D bis) assumed that France would hold along the Maginot line while advancing rapidly into Belgium—with or without an invitation—to join the Belgian Army in stopping a German attack - After Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, however, Belgium declared neutrality and France, now unsure about Belgian intentions, introduced the Dyle Plan, an advance only as far as a line running from Namur in the east along the Dyle River to Antwerp - Gamelin's motives for adopting the Breda Variant remain obscure, but two ideas probably contributed: 1. First the economic and social pain inflicted by the "Phoney War" (the British term for the period between the declarations of war and the German attack on France) aroused doubts about the long-war strategy 2. Just as runners normally enter the shortest race they can win, nations chose the strategy imposing the least strain on their populations. Viewed as a distant, hypothetical prospect, a long-war strategy seemed the safest road to victory; after the Phoney - War revealed some real costs of fighting a marathon war, French leaders began to re-evaluate—more hopefully than realistically—their nation's ability to sprint

Return to the Marne

By April conditions had changed in favor of the Allies: 1. Although the Germans had gained plenty of ground, they had effectively lost the battle of personnel. In place of the highly-trained elite stormtroopers came the young, the old, the wounded, and the lightly-trained men converted from non-combat units. Several of the best Allied units, moreover, had largely stayed out of the spring fighting 2. The Allies had made some important reforms: At the tactical level, they put greater emphasis into defense-in-depth formations that forced stormtroopers to fight through much deeper Allied positions, and these tactics had proven generally effective. At the strategic level, the Allies had finally formed a unified command system under the energetic and cerebral Foch 3. The German Army's gains looked much better on paper than they did on the ground itself. Much of the area that the Germans had seized consisted of ground that they themselves had devastated in their 1917 strategic retreat to the so-called Hindenburg (or Siegfried) Line 4. Most importantly, the offensives, while tactically impressive, had not produced any decisive strategic result. - On the operational level, key rail junctures, towns, and high ground remained in Allied hands. Ludendorff had gotten the hole he had hoped for, but once it appeared he had no idea what to do with it

The Strategic Situtation

CENTRAL POWERS - On 19 September, British forces, relying for the last time on the heavy use of horse cavalry, broke through Ottoman lines at Megiddo in central Palestine, effectively ending Ottoman military power - The Hungarian and Czech nationalities inside the empire seceded as the empire's Italian foes showed signs of recovering from the disaster at Caporetto the previous autumn - Even if Germany could force the war into 1919, it would have to fight alone yet with more fronts to cover GERMANY - Ten times more workers went on strike in 1918 than in 1916, and the number of strikers espousing political messages had risen fourteen-fold - On 28 September Ludendorff demanded that the German government make peace because the situation on the battlefield would only deteriorate further - More and more Germans, frustrated with a dishonest government and facing another hungry winter due to the crippling British blockade, turned to either the mainstream socialist party or the far more radical Spartakus movement, which advocated a Soviet-style revolution - the prospect of such a revolution frightened Germany's leaders at least as much as a defeat on the western front - As the defeats of July, August, and September mounted, Germans increasingly questioned the value of continuing the war, even if most did not sympathize with the Spartakus desire to overthrow the system by force - Defeat on the battlefield clearly caused the problems on the home front, not vice versa - By robbing Ukraine, Russia, and Poland of supplies, the German Army maintained a basic level of subsistence at home and deflected questions about its own strategic bankruptcy - Germany's real problem was not morale on the home front, but morale in the ranks. Tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of German soldiers deserted ENTENTE - Foch had become increasingly certain that the Allies could force the Germans into signing a favorable armistice before 1918 ended. To do so, however, he knew that the Allies had to break the Hindenburg Line and get into the open country behind it

Summarize the strategies the Central Powers and Entente employed in 1916

CENTRAL POWERS -Conrad [Austria] advocated a combined offensive against Italy, which he hoped would knock the Italians out of the war -Falkenhayn, on the other hand, believed that the war would be won or lost on the Western Front and felt that efforts should be concentrated there -The two leaders decided to launch separate offensives, with the Austrians using their reserves in an offensive against Italy and the Germans attacking on the Western Front. Thus, the Central Powers surrendered the benefits of unity of effort within their coalition. The two campaigns were planned and executed without any coordination and without any attempt to achieve higher-level goals from the effects of both offensives ENTENTE -Joffre viewed coordinated, simultaneous offensives as crucial: during the piecemeal Entente attacks in 1915, Germany was able to move reserves from one threatened point to another and contain each Entente offensive in turn. Joffre hoped that attacking simultaneously on all fronts would mean that Germany would not have the reserves necessary to be strong everywhere and that this would stretch the German army to its breaking point -All three armies planned to use artillery to prepare the way for the infantry assault; each subscribed in some way or other to the concept of "artillery conquers, infantry occupies"

Explain how the Central Powers and Entente attempted to cope with stalemate on the Western Front through technological and tactical adaption in 1916.

CENTRAL POWERS -Rather than aim to defeat the enemy's army decisively by maneuver, Falkenhayn set out to wear down one of his opponents. This attrition was designed not purely for battlefield effect, but rather mainly for political. Falkenhayn chose what was, in his mind, the weakest link in the Entente as the object of this attritional battle—the French army 1. First, due to high casualties, it was beginning to find it difficult to maintain its units at full strength 2. Second, it was an army conscripted from the citizens of a republic. In the aristocratic Falkenhayn's eyes, this gave it a unique weakness. As the army was made up of the sons of French voters, increasing the death toll would increase public pressure on the French government to end the war sooner rather than later 3. German intelligence had repeatedly stressed the political vulnerability of the French army to public opinion, and Falkenhayn hoped that 'bleeding white' the French army would foment greater unrest on the home front -In the end, in early 1917, the new German high command decided to abandon the Somme battlefield, withdrawing to a much stronger defensive position to the rear known as the Hindenburg Line ENTENTE For Entente commanders, the attrition of the German forces was a precursor to a "decisive," war-winning battlefield offensive. They saw battles having three stages: 1. In the first stage of a battle, the enemy defenders would be physically and psychologically worn down by preparatory fire 2. Once a commander believed the enemy was wavering, he would launch his reserves into the fray where the enemy line was weakest and most ready to collapse. This second stage was the "decisive" attack 3. Once this attack had broken the enemy line and caused him to retreat, he would be pursued and destroyed by mobile forces The British and French developed some important innovations that made their artillery support more effective: 1. Although applied inconsistently, both made use of rudimentary creeping barrages to support their attacking infantry. These barrages moved a curtain of artillery fire forward at a set pace, behind which the infantry could advance. This curtain of fire forced the enemy to keep their heads down until the attackers were right on top of their position, minimizing the time attackers had to be subjected to enemy small-arms and machine-gun fire 2. The British and French armies made particularly effective use of aircraft to reconnoiter German positions and to spot for artillery fire. Indeed, for the German defenders on the Somme, this air-artillery cooperation became one of the most hated features of the Entente offensive -If anything, the battle of Verdun brought the French nation closer together and more determined to see the war to its end TECHNOLOGY -On the night of 21/22 June, the start of a new offensive aiming to finally clear the French from the east bank of the Meuse, German guns fired some 110,000 newly-developed diphosgene rounds (filled with a liquid which sublimated into choking vapors capable of destroying the filters then used in gas masks) at the French artillery positions, neutralizing the gunners during the German infantry's maneuvers. The results were spectacular (at least by the dismal standards of the battle). In two days the attackers succeeded in capturing the heavily defended defensive work, driving to within four kilometers from the heart of the fortress of Verdun -Neither the German diphosgene shells nor British tanks could break the stalemate

Describe the causes, conduct, and outcomes of the Wars of German Unification.

Causes: Calls for political unification which would help protect smaller German states and prevent a repeat of Napoleon... Bismark's goals: unify northern German states and strengthen Prussia, weaken the liberal factions of Prussia Conduct: Fight for land Outcomes: Small German states found themselves dominated by Prussia

Understand relationships between operations on the Eastern and Western Fronts and operations in other areas of the world

EASTERN FRONT - The Germans took the offensive on the Eastern Front, where they began the year by beating the Russian army back seventy miles at the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes and then, unable to move further in the winter weather, went over to the defensive. As the Russian army threatened western Galicia and Hungary, Falkenhayn realized that Germany would have to save its Austro-Hungarian ally from disaster - The German army, having overrun Poland, now entered the ravaged cities of northeastern Europe, as the German army undertook the "Drive to the East," to bring order, culture, and civilization to the primitive peoples -German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops consequently invaded Serbia in overwhelming numbers in early October, blocking any allied expedition from Salonika and severing any Serb line of retreat to the south. The Serbs were forced to retreat southwest through the mountains of Montenegro and Albania in the dead of winter, and of their original army of 200,000 men, just 125,000 survived for the Entente to ship to Salonika TURKEY - The Ottomans, who had massacred some 200,000 Armenians in 1894-6 and another 25,000 in 1909, believed that the Armenians and the Russians were actively conspiring to raise a revolt of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia. The Ottoman Army formed a "Special Organization" to control any separatist movement, and then it deployed officers to lead units of brigands and convicts, an "army of murderers," to "destroy the Armenians" - When the anticipated Russian offensives and armed Armenian revolts began in spring 1915, the Ottomans crushed the rebels brutally and in June deported Armenians en masse away from the Russian border and permanently to Mesopotamia and Syria. In the process, the Turks massacred Armenians and marched them into the desert to die

Why do the Central Powers think they're losing in 1917?

Germany -They can't feed their people at home... food riots -Mass casualities at Verdun -Not enought naval forces Austria-Hungary -Facing many fronts -New rule -Realizing Germany is trying to become a world power

Explain the impact of industrialization and the liberalization of European societies on the conduct of war.

Liberalism: wanted democratic representation, opposed an absolute monarchy Showwalter's work discusses the forces of mechanization, management, and participation, and how their innovation from the Industrial Revolution impacted warfare He argues that the era of cabinet wars was defined by mechanization, shaped by management, and enabled by participation, which helped beligerents make war, sustain war, and control war at a distance.

Identify and describe the three levels of war.

Strategic: a plan for how the belligerent will use his armed forces to overcome the resistance posed by obstacles, or for the defender to neutralize the threat posed by the enemy's instruments of violence..."What will I do to my enemy that will suffice to make him agree to do my will?".... plans will inevitably involve a certain amount of actual fighting Operational: The energy that is normally spent on maneuvering within the theater and ensuring that the army is properly supplied... operational art positions the army to win the fight Tactical: How or whether they should attack ... decisions and plans are important in determining the outcome when they two sides are relatively equal in strength *Success in war demand a balance of all three

France in the Interwar Period

Strategy and Force Structure - France emerged from the conflict with the strongest military forces in Western Europe France's postwar security edifice had four pillars: 1. Treaty restrictions on German military force 2. International cooperation in the form of the League of Nations and disarmament conferences - Neither the League of Nations nor disarmament talks lived up to post-war hopes. Already diminished by US abstention, the League proved impotent to punish aggression by Japan against China in 1933 or Italy against Ethiopia in 1935 3. Alliances - Security through alliance proved equally illusory. The highly desirable Great War alliances with the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States could not be revived - Denied the allies she wanted, France signed treaties with Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia - The eastern alliances were intended to discourage a German attack on France, but later burdened France with prospect of being expected to defend Eastern Europe 4. Military readiness for modern war - To avoid the devastation suffered in World War One, France prepared to fight the long war in Belgium - From 1930 to 1935 French engineers built a sophisticated series of underground defenses stretching along the French border from Switzerland to Luxembourg and named after the War Minister André Maginot - In 1930, France became the first country to mount entire infantry divisions on trucks. To protect these mobile units, France transformed horse cavalry units into new "mechanized light divisions" (DLMs). The world's first armored divisions, these units were designed to fill traditional cavalry roles of reconnaissance, screening, and exploiting breakthroughs - The cadre-reserve structure favored simple, defensive ideas and impeded the dissemination of new methods or equipment. Proposals to create a professional army capable of more rapid innovation were not only unaffordable and at odds with France's defensive posture, but antithetical to republican traditions - France had to allocate scarce resources among possible types of aircraft: bombers, defensive fighters, and econnaissance planes. In an ill-conceived effort at thrift, France combined all three missions in multi-purpose "bombardment-combat-reconnaissance" (BCR) airplanes - In the next war, the tactical advantage of defensive firepower would be backed by the industrial resources of mobilized nations, indeed coalitions. In such a "modern war," the original "nation in arms" claimed many advantages—superior strategy, tactical defense, allies motivated by German aggression, efficient domestic mobilization, colonial resources, and the largest army in Western Europe - In addition to operating in the North Sea and British Channel against the relatively small German naval threat, the navy had to block the Italians from French North Africa while also protecting far-flung colonial interests Military Doctrine Her conscript army and long-war strategy led France to the doctrine of "directed battle" (bataille conduite), which sought tor eproduce French successes in 1918. France would attack only after time had blunted enemy advantages

Germany Interwar Period

Strategy and Force Structure - Germany sought to change, not defend, the European status quo - Diplomacy paid off in 1925 with the signing of the Locarno Pact, in which Germany joined with France, Britain, and Italy in guaranteeing the Western borders established at Versailles - What looked like a reaffirmation of the hated treaty restored Germany to equal partnership with the victorious powers, while the much-touted "spirit of Locarno" prevented separate Franco-British military arrangements - As Germany emerged from revolution in 1918 with a shaky republican government, generals and admirals saw the armed forces—although temporarily dissolved—as a bastion of traditional political values in a time of political upheaval - Chief of Staff Hans von Seeckt concluded that a smaller force trained and equipped for mobile operations could defeat the massive conscript armies of 1914-1918 - The Reichsheer's first commander, General Walter Reinhardt, understood that modern firepower favored defensive warfare and therefore a defensive posture neither fostered comprehensive rearmament nor nourished the army's autonomy from civilian control; moreover, only offensive war promised the speedy recovery of lost German territory - Claiming concern for domestic order, the generals persuaded Hitler to unleash the Party's other paramilitary force, Heinrich. Himmler's black-shirted Schutzstaffel or SS, against their mutual rival the SA on 30 June 1934. Although two generals, including ex-chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, were among those murdered in the notorious "Night of the Long Knives," the army issued a statement praising Hitler's action against "mutineers and traitors" - Hitler was determined on two goals unattainable without war: the conquest of the Soviet Union and the destruction of the Jews. He rearmed Germany not merely for national pride or future contingencies but because his racial theories made warinevitable - According to historian Adam Tooze, "international escalation opened the door to domestic mobilization, not the other way around" - "Plan Z"—the construction of huge fleet of both capital ships and submarines—over nine years, before the completion of which the Kriegsmarine could not realistically contest sea command with Britain - Captain Karl Dönitz (Commodore and Commander of submarines as of 28 Jan 1939) argued that Germany could defeat Britain earlier by using submarines against the island nation's trade Military Doctrine 1. Seeckt's Reichswehr was primarily an infantry force supported by artillery and horsed cavalry and highly trained in combined operations. Its operational vision descended directly from the Elder Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke's Vernichtungsgedanke ("concept of annihilation")—the use of rapid concentration of forces and coordinated firepower to achieve deep penetrations in order to envelop and destroy whole armies 2. Mavericks like Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein proposed the use of armored forces not to destroy enemy armies but to paralyze them by deep attacks against command and control and logistical centers - These two schools—partisans of Moltke's Vernichtungsgedanke and advocates of what historian Matthew Cooper calls "the armoured idea"— shared the premise that the rapid victories demanded by Germany's strategic geography could best be achieved by combined arms forces exploiting the advantages of mechanization - Although deep armored penetrations (as opposed to the more cautious envelopments) would achieve stunning successes in France and North Africa, penetration without regard for flank security would prove impractical against the Soviet Union, with its strategic depth and huge military forces - While the French Army and Air Force apparently fought separate wars in 1940, the Luftwaffe proved an effective adjunct to advancing German ground forces

Italy in the Interwar Period

Strategy and Force Structure - The rise of Fascism in interwar Italy and its metastasis throughout Europe demonstrates the role of ideology in shaping national strategy - Benito's Mussolini's fascist government, which governed Italy in collaboration with King Victor Emanuel III from 1922 to 1943, saw war as a means of claiming great-power status while instilling in the population fascist values of action and combativeness - Guilio Douhet believed that airpower, the only effective antidote to defensive warfare, had to be used directly against enemy cities -Sequential employment of high explosive, incendiary, and gas bombs would create such devastation that civilian populations would force their government to capitulate - Douhet's idea of "strategic bombing" aroused great interest—and concern—in many countries, but Italy never attempted to build the heavy bombers needed to execute the idea - After Douhet's death in 1933, a rival theory of "assault aviation" propounded by Colonel Amadeo Mecozzi gained traction. Aware that strategic attacks on enemy cities would face enemy fighters and provoke retaliatory strikes, Mecozzi planned to employ bombers in low-level strikes against operational targets—the enemy's lines of communications, headquarters, and supply depots - Constructed to symbolize Italy's imperial aspiration, the Navy had impressive battleships, but too few of them to defeat Britain or France in the Mediterranean - To compensate for inferiority in capital ships and exploit the heroism of fascist man, the Regia Marina built many two-man or "midget" submarines - The Second Italo-Ethiopian War of (October 1935-May 1936) was an explicit war of conquest in which Italian forces defeated with difficulty (and mustard gas) the poorly armed and trained Ethiopian army - When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Mussolini was torn between concern lest the conflict might spark a wider European war and desire to flex his fascist military muscles. He signed the international Non-Intervention Agreement, and then violated it by sending "volunteers" to assist General Ferdinand Franco's National forces against the constitutional republic

Soviet Union Interwar Period

Strategy and Force Structure - Tsarists, liberals and socialist anti-communists, Ukrainian, Polish, and other nationalist movements all contributed to the "White" side in an amorphous war against Vladimir Lenin's "Red" government - At the cost of more than 1,000,000 military deaths alone, the Civil War created a Soviet state surrounded by hostile neighbors and fearful of foreign invasion and domestic subversion -The Civil War taught the ruling Communist Party that the politically reliable Red Guards—the proletarian heroes of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution—were too few to defend the state, while peasant partisans, though numerous, were politically and military suspect - Aleksandr Andreevich Svechin believed that the Soviet Union ought to take appropriate peacetime measures to prepare the army and the economy for a long war of attrition. Instead of seeking a rapid victory of "destruction," Svechin's initial operations would take an "indirect approach" against enemy weaknesses - Communists generals like Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky and Boris Mikhailovitch Shaposhnikov insisted that Soviet doctrine must reflect its revolutionary heritage - By 1935, when the Reichswehr owned only a few impotent PzKwI tanks, the Red Army had acquired an extraordinary total of 35,000 motor vehicles, 7,633 tanks, and 6,672 airplanes, all of them soon to be obsolete - The Red Air Force trained mostly for air interdiction and ground support operations; indeed, the transport version of the TB-3 supported a massive Soviet investment in parachute troops Doctrine - Events since 1914 taught them that war could produce politically consequential victories; it was a tool for the inevitable destruction of capitalism - The key to "Deep Battle," as expressed by General Vladimir Triandafillov, was to replace consecutive with simultaneous operations - Instead of "gnawing through the enemy defensive zone," the initial attack—made possible by artillery and, if available, air support—would launch heavy armor straight through the enemy's forward positions to strike artillery and headquarters units - A second armored element would attack the by-passed strong points while a third element comprising infantry units and support tanks dealt with the enemy's front line - Air units would interdict enemy reserves, and paratroopers land in the enemy rear - The defensive variant of "Deep Battle" involved many layers of defensive positions with heavy emphasis on anti-tank guns - Deep Battle offered a route to tactical victory, but Soviet theorists realized that the real challenge was to exploit tactical success for strategic ends - Deep Operations focused not on the front line but on rapidly achieving effects at a distance - Where Deep Battle called for simultaneous attacks to different depths within the enemy position, Deep Operations could only be consecutive - The attack would occur in a series of echelons, each echelon supporting the preceding one in a "consecutive and unbroken accumulation of operational efforts - Infantry and cavalry divisions received organic tank battalions and regiments. A tank brigade was attached to each corps' reserve; separate mechanized corps were created in 1935 -Georgii Isserson proposed developing massive "shock armies" containing 15 rifle divisions, two cavalry divisions, three mechanized brigades, a motorized division, and air units

The Strategic Situation, January 1915

Strategy, or at least strategic planning, is in large part a matter of time and space: Time - nations were still looking for that one decisive knock-out victory, especially as the costs for maintaining the front lines rose; for Germany, a long war promised eventual defeat ~By January 1915 mass mobilization had created significant economic disruption, leaving many businesses without the manpower to remain productive ~By the end of the year full employment was the norm, as national economies adjusted to state-led demands for munitions. The war was not only the new reality; it was also the new normality, and most recognized that it would not be over soon ~German leaders were in a quandary: they needed to win the war soon if they were to win it at all, but after the defeat on the Marne in September 1914 they could not see a way to do that. Some of them began to realize that they might not win this war as decisively as they had hoped, but that did not prevent them thinking in the long term. They began to see the current world war as the first of a series Space - Germany saw the war as an opportunity to strengthen its geopolitical position inside Europe ~Whether fighting to win the current struggle or fighting so that it would be better able to win the next war, Germany saw the war as an opportunity to strengthen its geopolitical position inside Europe.

German Preparation for the Great Offense

Stürmtruppen ("assault troops") - Elite companies of men, specially chosen for their physical fitness and skills - Their assault tactics emphasized maximum use of surprise and speed to infiltrate through, rather than destroy outright, enemy forces in fortified trench systems - The Stürmtruppen looked for points of weakness and bypassed enemy strongpoints, such as blockhouses, maneuvering around them and cutting their communication and supply lines -Cut off from re-supply, reinforcement, and unable to contact headquarters, the strongpoints were easily reduced by the follow on "regular" infantry -Once through the initial defenses, the Stürmtruppen went for headquarters and the artillery in the enemy's rear -Ludendorff intended to use these new formations to spearhead his great offensive, and believed that these elite divisions would break through the invincible trenches of the Western Front and restore operational mobility, and the possibility for decisive victory -The Germans developed a new method, called the Pulkowski method, by which they registered their guns by firing at targets well behind their own lines, and then using carefully constructed equations to provide a "virtual" registration of the pieces - Not only did this preserve operational security, but it enhanced accuracy and allowed for firing during pre-dawndarkness, since direct observation was not needed -Bruchmüller pioneered centralized command and control methods that welded together thousands of guns into one coherent system of barrage -He also adopted the Pulkowski method for registration and thus could place overwhelming amounts of firepower almost instantly on target with little to no warning in the opening moments of an offensive -Bruchmüller's methods called for immense rapid fire barrages that lasted a few hours -Ludendorff's general plan was to break through the British defenses, which he believed were weakest here, and then push northwest toward the English Channel to envelop and destroy large elements of the British Expeditionary Force -Apparently Ludendorff (Germany) gave far less thought to how to make tactical success part of a coherent operational level plan that would in turn produce the strategic victory that was the stated goal of the offensive

Battle of Somme

The German offensive at Verdun began only a week after the Anglo-French agreement, and ultimately changed the battle of the Somme fundamentally: 1. First, the battle of Verdun used up French units relentlessly between 21 February and 1 July. By the end of April, Joffre was forced to reduce the French contribution from 42 to 30 divisions 2. The two visions of the battle—Rawlinson's limited attritional offensive and Haig's more ambitious ideas— remained largely unresolved at the battle's start. Consequently, the 4th Army's final plan was, in the words of one of Haig's recent biographers, "...a half-baked, distinctly dangerous compromise" -With little ability to influence the tactical battle directly, this was accomplished through influencing tactical doctrine and the training of troops. Although progress on ground was slow, when it came to the conceptual component of warfare, the two battles were anything but static -There were two main areas of tactical development 1. First, higher commands in all armies continually worked to improve infantry/artillery cooperation. The side that could provide fire support more effectively had a distinct tactical advantage 2. Second, given the lack of communication to the forward battle zone, each army began to devolve command and control to lower levels -After the failure of the attack with tanks of 15 September, the Anglo-French armies continued their slow grind into the German positions. By mid-November, the weather conditions had deteriorated to such an extent and troops were so exhausted that it was clear no further progress could be made. Large-scale operations were ended on 18 November, though minor attacks continued to better the existing positions

The Crisis of July 1914

The July Crisis was a diplomatic crisis among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914 that led to the First World War. Immediately after Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo, a series of diplomatic maneuverings led to an ultimatum from Austria-Hungary to Serbia, and ultimately to war

Summarize the principal elements of Germany's new defensive doctrine.

The Strategic Balance - Austria-Hungary's venerable leader Emperor Franz Josef had died the previous November, and his successor, the 29-year-old Karl Franz Josef I, was not prepared to take the helm of a deteriorating empire engaged in a vast deadlocked struggle - Karl decided to exercise direct military command over his forces - Sensing the weakness of their ally, the German government planned to assert German hegemony in Europe and divest Austria- Hungary of a significant amount of territory in the final post-war settlement - People called the winter of 1916-17 the "Turnip Winter," because turnips—usually reserved for livestock feed—became a staple of the German diet. Ersatz food, including bread made from potato skins and sawdust, also became commonplace The Gamble: Unrestricted Submarine Warfare - Germany's leadership regarded Britain as the central pillar of the Entente coalition arrayed against them, and thus believed that its collapse would win the war - On 1 February 1917 the German U-boats, already pre-positioned in the waters around Great Britain, attacked with unprecedented ferocity - The U-boats sank approximately 520,000 tons of Allied shipping in FebruarPy 1917, a further 564,000 tons in March, and then an astonishing 860,000 tons in April - Germany was overall reluctant to go back to unrestricted submarine warfare because of their previous agreement with the U.S not to participate in it.

Use the examples of the Somme and Verdun to illustrate fundamental problems of conducting offensive operations against enemy trench networks.

The two battles represented a radical departure in both form and function from battles in recent history. Not only was the scale of the battles unseen and unforeseen by contemporaries, but so too were their objectives. Commanders on both sides now planned to fight battles, the main objective of which was simply the wearing down, or attrition, of the enemy's army. Before 1916, battle was an action clearly delineated in time and space, generally designed to defeat an enemy force or part of an enemy force decisively on the battlefield

Summarize the strategic alternatives that the Central Powers and Entente were considering in 1915-1916.

This lesson shows why this is a world war and not just a European War Review -British and France will take marginal gains of land (nibbling) because they know it's not German's land and they will give it up -They avoid a frontal attack because it is resource intensive -The French wants to get Germany out as they are in 1/5 of France territory (win on the Western Front) -The British wanted to maintain the Alliance, because they could not fight off Germany on their own -Fight on the Western Front as that's where the strongest enemy forces present themselves -Eastern Front, British realize they have a small army but do commerce and naval tactics best so they fight on the peripheral... if we fight a global war we force our enemy to fight a global war -Germany (Falkenhayn) also has to find a way to defeat the most capable armies (French) whichwould then put the British in a bad spot and then they can focus on the East, where there is more room to maneuver. Further, alliance with Austria-Hungary, Serbia and Ottomans allows for more communication. BUT Russia is a superior force and they can't focus too many resources to the East because then France and Britain will become more of a power. -Russia withdrawals out of Poland back into Russia -Germans that want a new life come to the United States War at Sea -If Germany defeats British fleets they can fight on the peripheral of the west. If they lose, they lose their fleet and they aren't getting another one -If British win they block Germany off. If they lose, they open Britain to invasion or assault and trading is in jeopardy -What actually happens: both withdrawal -Germans sunk Lusitania... Germans stop blowing up enemy ships War in the Mountains -Italians have an alliance with Germany but don't like the Austrians -Ottoman Empire joins Germany to strengthen and modernize the weak Ottoman military and to provide Germany with safe passage into the neighboring British colonies. -Armenian Genocide: Ottoman leaders took isolated indications of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence.

Understand the tactical, psychological, and medical consequences of trench warfare.

This war will be won by exhaustion of nations rather than victories of armies

Strategy for Victory

_ In the north, the British and Belgians would resume the offensive in Flanders to liberate the Belgian coastline, avenge the defeat at Passchendaele from the year before, and tie down German units - The French Army, moving methodically and carefully owing to its own manpower shortages, began to reduce the two large salients that jutted toward Paris. The French also advanced toward the critical rail juncture of Mézières, where three main German supply lines converged - The Americans had the responsibility for the southern sector in the region bounded by the thick Argonne forest and the mostly unfordable Meuse river

Douglas Haig

a British senior officer during World War I. He commanded the BEF from 1915 to the end of the war. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the battle with one of the highest casualties in British military history, the Third Battle of Ypres, and the Hundred Days Offensive, which led to the armistice in 1918. Some called him "Butcher Haig" for the two million British casualties under his command, and regard him as representing the very concept of class-based incompetent commanders, stating that he was unable to grasp modern tactics and technologies; others have praised Haig's leadership and since the 1980s some historians have argued that the public hatred in which Haig's name had come to be held failed to recognise the adoption of new tactics and technologies by forces under his command, or the important role played by the British forces in the Allied victory of 1918, and that the high casualties suffered were a function of the tactical and strategic realities of the time.

Gallipoli

a World War Icampaign that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916. The peninsula forms the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a strait that provides a sea route to what was then the Russian Empire. Intending to secure it, Russia's allies Britain and France launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula with the eventual aim of capturing the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. The naval attack was repelled and, after eight months' fighting, with many casualties on both sides, the land campaign also failed and the invasion force was withdrawn to Egypt.

Trench Warfare

a form of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most prominent case of trench warfare is the Western Front. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition and futility in conflict. Trench warfare occurred when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. In World War I, both sides constructed elaborate trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire. The area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties as a matter of course. - The prevalence of both ambulances and civilian nursing organizations like the the Red Cross played an important role in making World War I the first war where more men died in combat than from disease - The advent of reconnaissance aircraft over the battlefield prevented this work being done during the day, for fear that it would be observed and so come under enemy artillery fire. For the same reason fires were not permitted in the front line - The Idea Form of Trench Construction: ~The line was not straight, but zig-zagged, with traverses to prevent the blast from a shell which landed in the trench from traveling along it ~The front of the trench, or parapet, had a fire-step from which the soldier could look out to his front over No Man's Land, and at intervals a sap would project forward towards the enemy positions to provide an observation post ~No man's land, often cratered with shell holes, provided its own places for shelter as well as its own obstacles—the latter enhanced by barbed wire entanglements ~The back of the front-line trench, or parados, was higher than the front, so providing protection from shells which burst beyond it ~As the war stabilized positions multiplied—with three lines of trenches, front, support and reserve, each connected to the one behind it by communication trenches, running forwards and backwards to enable the flow of troops and supplies as well as the evacuation of casualties ~In areas where there was little movement over months and years, these networks would themselves be repeated; the depth was not only horizontal but also vertical: tunnels were begun far back so that the evidence of their evacuation would not be visible from the air - The three specific ailments of trench warfare in 1914-18 were trench fever, trench feet and gas gangrene: 1. Lice, which flourished in the uniforms of men living in close proximity, were implicated in typhus, but their link to trench fever was not established until 1918 (then resulting in even greater efforts to maintain personal hygiene and to clean uniforms when their wearers were out of the line) 2. Trench foot was a particularly painful form of frostbite brought on by standing in cold water for prolonged periods. Over eight weeks between December 1914 and February 1915 the British 1st Army suffered more than 3,000 cases. The best preventive was to rub whale oil on the inside and outside of boots before going into the line, and to make sure that feet were kept clean and that fresh socks were dry 3. Gas gangrene was a deadly form of infection caused by soil-borne bacteria, which could quickly kill men after even seemingly light wounds. It was especially common on the Western Front because the land had been well tilled, fertilized and manured, and its soil consequently carried more sources of infection -Shell fire undoubtedly added to the strain of front-line combat, but its consequences were mental, not physical -Those at the front line could certainly suffer trauma: from being wounded, from seeing comrades blown to pieces by shells, and from being buried alive in their dugouts. But they also suffered from the sustained slog of trench warfare, with inadequate rest and leave—from perpetual strain rather than specific trauma -The Christmas cease-fires reflected a consequence of the routines of trench warfare: that active offensives were the exception, not the norm, and that most days had similar patterns on both sides of the line

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East African campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have come down "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."

Strategy of Attrition

a military strategy in which a belligerent side attempts to win a war by wearing down its enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and material. The war will usually be won by the side with greater such resources. The word attrition comes from the Latin root atterere to rub against, similar to the "grinding down" of the opponent's forces in attrition warfare

Strategic Bombing

a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy's war-making capacity. One of the aims of war is to demoralize the enemy, so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing the conflict

First Battle of the Marne

battle fought between the 5th and the 12th of September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army under Chief of Staff Helmuth von Molke the Younger. The battle effectively ended the month long German offensive that opened the war and had reached the outskirts of Paris. The counterattack of six French Field Armies and one British army along the Marne River forced the German Imperial Army to abandon its push on Paris and retreat northeast, setting the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front. The battle of the Marne was an immense strategic victory for the Allies, wrecking Germany's bid for a swift victory over France and forcing it into a protracted two-front war

Battle of Tannenberg

fought by the Russian Army against the German Army between 26 August and 30 August 1914. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army. A series of follow-up battles destroyed the majority of the First Army as well, and kept the Russians off-balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is notable particularly for a number of rapid movements of complete German corps by train, allowing a single German army to concentrate its forces against each Russian army in turn.

U-Boat

the English version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, which means "undersea boat." Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role, enforcing a naval blockade against enemy shipping. The primary targets of the U-boat campaigns in both wars were the merchant convoys bringing supplies from Canada, the British Empire and the United States to the islands of the United Kingdom and (during World War II) to the Soviet Union and the Allied Countries in the Mediterranean.

Brusilov Offensive

the Russian Empire's greatest feat of arms during World War I, and among the most lethal battles in world history. It was a major offensive against the armies of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front, launched on June 4, 1916, and lasting until late September. It took place in what today is Ukraine. The offensive was named after the Russian commander in charge of the Southwestern Front, Gen. Aleksei Brusilov.

Triple Entente

the alliance linking Russia, France, and the United Kingdom after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente on August 31, 1907. The alliance of the three powers, supplemented by agreements with Portugal and Japan, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.

Triple Alliance

the military alliance among Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, that lasted from 1882 until World War I in 1914. Each member promised mutual support in the event of an attack by any other geat power, or for Germany and Italy, an attack by France alone.

Rorke's Drift 1879

was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift began when a large contingent of Zulu warriors broke off from their main force during the final hour of the British defeat at the day-long Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, diverting 6 miles (9.7 km) to attack Rorke's Drift later that day and continuing into the following day