WORLD WAR ONE

By the end of World

War I, Europe no
longer dominated the
globe, and by the end
of World War II,
Europe itself was
dominated by two
powers outside the
core of the Continent:
the United States and
The Fading of the Soviet Union.

European Power
The Sarajevo
Assassination
•The assassination of the Austrian archduke
Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914
unleashed a catastrophic war that lasted
four years, cost ten million lives, changed
the face of the European continent, and set
the stage for an even more global and
destructive war a generation later.
•The Sarajevo assassination was a relatively
minor incident in an obscure corner of
Europe, and the resulting dispute was
mostly between Austria-Hungary and
Serbia, which was held responsible for the
murder. But the incident quickly drew in
most of the major European powers.
Balance of Power
in Europe
In 1914, the main components of the
balance of power in Europe were the Triple
Alliance formed by Germany, Austria, and
Italy and the Triple Entente of Russia,
France, and (minimally) England. Russia was
also allied with Serbia in the Balkans, partly
to counterpoise the influence of both the
Ottomans and the Austrians in the region
and partly as a way of extending protection
over fellow Slavs. The Serbs, like the
Russians, are Slavic peoples with a Cyrillic
alphabet and a background of Eastern
Orthodox Christianity.
European
Armies
•By 1914, most European states
had the largest armies they had
ever maintained in peacetime. The
military buildup extended to the
seas, as well, with a major naval
arms race between England and
Germany that had lasted fifteen
years.
•War preparations and the arms
race were shaking the stability of
Europe at the end of the
nineteenth century, but so were
the forces of nationalism and their
effects on the multinational
empires that dominated central
 The spark that lit
the war.
The spark that lit the war was the assassination
of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir
apparent to the Habsburg throne, while he was
reviewing troops in Sarajevo, the capital city of
recently annexed Bosnia. The man who shot the
archduke and his wife was a young Bosnian Serb
nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. The Austrian
government quickly blamed Serbia for the
incident and demanded that the government of
Serbia crack down on nationalist and terrorist
groups within its borders.
 Germany and
Austria
Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, a close friend
of the murdered archduke and an ally of
Austria, saw the situation in a similar
light and gave a “blank check” to Austria
to make military retribution against
Serbia. Austria issued an ultimatum to
Serbia that would have drastically
compromised Serbian sovereignty, thus
making it almost impossible for the
Serbs to comply fully.
 Escalation
•Austria foolishly expected that support
from Germany would keep Russia (and
others) out of the conflict. But the Austrian
ultimatum against Serbia prompted Russia
to mobilize its military, hoping this show of
resolution would force Austria to back
down. Germany demanded that the
Russians halt their mobilization; when
Russia did not, Germany began its own
mobilization.
•The German plan, envisaging a probable
two-front war called for German troops
first to be deployed against France and,
after a quick victory there, to be turned
toward the Russians.
 The War
Begins
On August 1, Germany declared war on
Russia; two days later, Germany
declared war on France; and within
days of that, German troops advanced
toward France through neutral
Belgium, thus bringing England into
the war. The incident in the Balkans
had become a Europe-wide war, with
the Central powers of Germany and
Austria confronting the Allies of
England, France, and Russia.
 The War
In the end, the war was neither quick
nor glorious. Because all sides now
possessed new weapons and
technology, nobody could quickly
prevail, and military campaigns soon
bogged down in trench warfare and
attrition. The scale of the slaughter
was unprecedented and horrific. Some
single battles, for example those at
Ypres and Verdun, saw tens of
thousands of deaths per hour and
hundreds of thousands of casualties
overall.
 Military
Technolog
y
•New military technology rendered the
conflict even more destructive and
dramatically widened the scope of
warfare, increasingly bringing civilians
and noncombatants under fire.
•Poison Gas.
•German zeppelin (blimp) raids on
London in 1915.
•And the submarine, first used by the
Germans to attack supply ships on
their way to Britain, ended up sinking
passenger liners, as well.
 The End of
War
The end of the war came not so
much from any particular
military successes on the
battlefield but rather from
general exhaustion and from
two events occurring in 1917:
the Russian Revolution, which
was soon to take Russia out of
the war, and the entry of the
United States into the war.
 The United
States
The United States had become increasingly
enmeshed in the conflict, however,
supplying the Allies with both food and
weapons. When in early 1917 the Germans
resumed unrestricted submarine warfare,
they sank several American ships, leading
the United States to declare war on
Germany in April “to make the world safe
for democracy,” in Wilson’s words. The
country mobilized quickly. In 1916, there
were only 130,000 men in the US armed
forces; by the end of 1917, 3.5 million men
had enlisted, and by 1918, they were on
their way to Europe.
 Epilogue
•US intervention in the war
tipped the balance and forced
the Germans to sue for peace in
November 1918, bringing the
war to a close.
•The Allied victors assembled in
Paris in the winter of 1919 to
draw up peace treaties dealing
with each of the defeated states.
 Versailles
Treaty
The Versailles Treaty, was heavy-handed
and punitive. Even though the origins of
the war could hardly be laid at the feet of
only one state, Germany was assigned
blame for the war and was compelled to
accept explicit responsibility for Allied
losses in the war. German territory was
much reduced in size, with Alsace-Lorraine
returned to France and parts of the prewar
state assigned to the newly established
state of Poland. East Prussia was separated
from the rest of Germany by a sliver of
land, the Polish corridor, allowing Poland
access to the Baltic Sea.
Women into the
Work Force
•The duration and totality of the war
transformed the home fronts in other
ways, as well. In every country,
governments became more involved in
economic planning and control as
consumer economies were regeared
for military production. With most men
at the military fronts, women were
brought into the workforce by the
millions.
•End of Absolute Monarchies
•Universal Suffrages
 Prelude to
World War II
Perhaps in good economic
circumstances, the new political order
in Europe could have gained a footing
and flourished, but the worldwide
economic depression of the late 1920s
and 1930s dashed any such hope. In
Germany, already weakened by
punishing reparation payments after
the war, the depression was
devastating. With millions of Germans
unemployed, impoverished, and
resentful about Versailles, the stage
was set for the rise of Adolf Hitler.