How Technology Changed the Face of the WarReadings: Smith, et al., 891-902
WHY GLOBAL WAR IN 1914?• Break of Multi-
national Empires• Intense Nationalism• Social Darwinism• Yellow Journalism
• Arms Race and Rise of Armaments Industry
New Weapons
New Weapons (continued)
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand• Serbian nationalism is
a big problem then and now
• Who Fought?• England, France,
Belgium (neutral but attacked), Russia, Serbia, Italy, Rumania, U.S., Japan, China, and Brazil
• Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire
Battlefronts
Western front and Trenches
Lusitania
How World War I ends:• All European powers
worn down—millions of casualties, millions of mutilated men
• British blockage leads to famine conditions in Germany and Austria-Hungary
• Germans believed they had to resume u-boat attacks
US Enters the War:• Germans feel they have to
renew unrestricted submarine warfare to end British blockade or morale will be totally ruined
• Zimmerman Telegram and U.S. – Mexico Relations
• April 1917, Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war.
• Ludendoff Offensive in March 1918
• Germans defeated 11 of November 1918
Casualties of World War I• Great Britain: 947, 000 dead; 2,122,000
wounded• France: 1,385,000 dead; 3,044,000
wounded• Russia: 1,700,000 dead; 4,950,000
wounded• Italy: 460,000 dead; 947,000 wounded• US: 115,000 dead; 206,000 wounded• Germany: 1,808,000 dead; 4,247,000
wounded• Austrio-Hungarian Empire: 1,200,000 dead;
3,620,000 wounded• Ottoman Empire: 325,000 dead; 400,000
wounded