World War 1

Armistice

Definition: An Armistice is also known a truce. Significance: German leaders were seeking an armistice from the Allies.

Poison Gas

Definition: If inhaled, the (chlorine) gas damages lung tissue and causes victims to cough violently and choke. In some cases, it resulted in death. Significance: Poisonous gas was a new weaponry introduction during World War 1 and was a response to deadlock.

Gallipoli Campaign

Definition: In the Spring of 1915, the Allied powers landed a force on the Gallipoli Peninsula in an attempt to rid the Dardanelle, a sea passage between the Mediterranean and the Black sea that the Allies used to ship supplies to Russia, of the Ottoman Empire control. Significance: After months of fighting and nearly 200,000 casualties, the Allies gave up. The Gallipoli Campaign was a failure and the Dardanelle was left in the control of the Ottoman Empire.

Mandates

Definition: Mandates are territories to be ruled by European powers. Significance: Ottoman lands were turned into mandates and ruled by European powers. Syria and Lebanon became French mandates. Palestine and Iraq became British mandates.

Armenian Massacre

Definition: Nearly 2 million ethnic Armenians were relocated to Mesopotamia and modern day Syria during World War 1. Significance: During this forced relocation, hundreds of thousands were starved to death or killed by Ottoman police or soldiers.

Balfour Declaration

Definition: The Balfour Declaration favored establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Significance: This gave the people more freedom, seeing as the mandates were to eventually control themselves.

Battle of Verdun

Definition: The Battle of Verdun was a planned German assault on the French fortress of Verdun. The battle was meant, solely, to kill or injure as many French soldiers as possible. Significance: The battle began in February 1916 and ended in December of that same year. France suffered some 400,000 casualties. Germany endured nearly as many, leaving both sides weakened.

Fourteen Points

Definition: The Fourteen Points was a plan for peace. Significance: Not everyone agreed with Wilson's suggestions and ideas but it sparked conversations of a treaty and nations were talking to each other about peace.

Lusitania

Definition: The Lusitania was a passenger liner carrying nearly 2,000 citizens from New York to Great Britain. The Germans issued a warning that they would attack any ships they saw headed towards Great Britain and when a German submarine saw the ship, the captain did not hesitate and a torpedo was launched, hitting the ship squarely. It sank in merely 18 minutes. Significance: The Germans targeting and attacking American ships angered the American greatly. The attacks on the ships as well as the information about Germany trying to get Mexico to attack the US, pushed the US into World War 1.

Second Battle of the Marne

Definition: The Second Battle of Marne took place near the Marne River in the Champagne Region of France. Significance: This was the last offensive push from the Germans in World War 1. It resulted in a victory for the Allies.

The Third Battle of Ypres

Definition: The Third Battle of Ypres took place in July of 1917 in Ypres, Belgium. It was an offensive attack from the British in a place where two other German battles had taken place. Significance: The battle did not go well for the British and they eventually had to end the battle in November. After three years of battle in Europe the front lines were virtually unchanged.

League of Nations

Definition: The Treaty established the organizations of world governments that Wilson had envisioned in his Fourteen Points. This organization was the League of Nations. Significance: The League's goals were to encourage international cooperation and to keep peace between the nations.

Treaty of Versailles

Definition: The Treaty of Versailles was created and signed when the Allies came to a decision. It was named after the place where it was signed, the French Palace of Versailles. Significance: This symbolized the end of the war and everyone was coming to peace with each other.

U.S. Entry to the War (include reasons for)

Definition: The US entered to the war in 1917. Their reasons being: Germans attacked neutral American ships. Americans feelings changed. Their patience with Germany was thinning.

Western Front

Definition: The Western Front was a series of trenches that ran 700 kilometers from Belgium coast to the Swiss border. Significance: The Western Front was where most and many battles occurred through World War 1.

Zimmermann Note

Definition: The Zimmerman Note was a secret passage from German diplomat Arthur Zimmermann to officials in Mexico. Significance: This connection allowed Germany to propose a Mexican attack on the US as well as negotiate what Mexico would get in return.

1st Battle of the Marne

Definition: This battle began on the 5th of September 1914 and continued until the 12th of September 1914 Significance: This was the first significant Allied victory of World War 1

Battle of the Somme

Definition: This battle, taking place in the Somme River area of France, was launched by the British and intended to pull the Germans away from Verdun in June 1916. Significance: The Battle of Somme was the main Allied assault during 1916. The British had nearly 60,000 casualties and, similar to verdun, at the end of the battle in December, there was no major breakthrough and each side suffered much loss.

Total war

Definition: Total war is the use of all of society's resources. Significance: Governments began to stronger control of their people.

Trench warfare

Definition: Trench warfare was the fighting from the safety/protection of mounds of dirt and was not a new warfare introduction. Significance: In wars, never before had trench warfare been seen on such a large scale as it was in Europe in 1914. Men were miserable in the trenches. Many men were killed in the area between the trenches, "no-man's land."

U-Boats

Definition: U-Boats were German submarines used to attack during the war. Significance: This lead the Germans to strengths out in the water creating hazards when nations tried to ship each other supplies.They were initially used to attack British naval vessels.

Woodrow Wilson

Definition: Woodrow Wilson was the American president during World War 1. Significance: Wilson did not want to become a part of the conflict across the ocean, so America did not join in the war until later on.