Europe Plunges into War

1914: Rival groups:Triple Entente (G.B., Fr., Russia)Triple Alliance (Germany, Aust.-Hung., Italy)

Aust’s declaration of war against Serbia set off a chain reaction w/in alliance system

I. The Great War Begins

Russia mobilized along Aust’s & Germany’s border Germany declared war on Russia (Aug 1)

Russia looked to Fr. Germany declared war on Fr. G.B. declared war on Germany

A. Nations Take Sides

Mid-Aug 1914: battle lines were clear Central Powers

Germany, Aust-Hung, Bulgaria, Ottoman Emp.

Allied Powers G.B., Fr., Russia, Japan, Italy

II. A Bloody Stalemate

War became a stalemate Western Front

Schlieffen Plan Russia had weak RRs Did not work as planned First Battle of the Marne

Russia invaded in the east Germany = TWO FRONT WAR!

A. Trench Warfare

By early 1915: W. Front: miles of parallel trenches Life was miserableThe men slept in mud, washed in mud, ate mud, & dreamed

mud. --trenches = rats, excrement, blood, bodies, disease

“no man’s land” = area betw. enemy trenches Bombed-out, barren landscape Shells of all calibers kept raining on our sector. The trenches disappered,

filled with earth…the air was unbreathable. Our blinded, wounded, crawling, and shouting soldiers kept falling on top of us and died splashing us with blood. It was living hell.

W. Front = terrain of death Stretched 500 miles (N. Sea to Switzerland)

Imagine a broad belt, ten miles or so in width, stretching from the Channel to the German frontier near Basle, which is positively littered with the bodies of men and scarified with their rude graves; in which farms, villages and cottages are shapeless heaps of blackened masonry; in which fields, roads and trees are pitted and torn and twisted by shells and disfigured by dead horses, cattle, sheep and goats, scattered in every attitude of repulsive distortion and dismemberment.

Military strategists = ???????? New tools of war:

Machine gun, poison gas, tanks, artillery, battleships, submarine, flame-thrower =

DEATH!!

III. Battle on the Eastern Front

Millions were sent to fight on E. Front Stretched along German-Russian border

Russians & Serbs battled Germans & Austro-Hungs.

War was more mobile in east Early on, Russia attacked both Aust. & Germany

Russia was later pushed out of Germany Fared better against Aust. initially, but later pushed out

A. Russia Struggles

By 1916: Russia’s war effort = poorRussia had not yet industrializedAllied supply shipments cut off by Central

Powers Russia’s only asset…

Large #s – fought war of attrition (large pop)