Humanities WW1 Notes:

World War 1:^[a]

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history 

• also known as the GREAT WAR
• began after the assassination of Archduke: Franz Ferdinand of Austria!
• His murder caused a war.. across Europe!

How long did it last?

• WAR STARTED: 1914
• WAR ENDED: 1918 

Who fought who?

Who won?

• The Allied Powers claimed victory!

Aftermath?

• By the time the war was over, more than 16 million people (soldiers and civilians) were dead!

PEOPLE: 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand:

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe (especially in the troubled Balkan region of Southeast Europe) for years before World War 1 actually broke out.

• What is the “Balkan region”

• originally controlled by the ottomans which is the Turkish Empire
• It was prone to outbursts and one political cartoon described it as a powder keg filled w/ gunpowder as it will burst any time now.

A number of alliances involved European powers had existed for years.

• These include:

• The ottoman empire
• Russia
• and other parties

But if they existed for years… What went wrong? 

• Well! Political instability in the Balkans, especially Bosnia, Serbia, and Herzegovina threatened to destroy these agreements.

What sparked the World War?

• Sarajevo, Bosnia: June 28, 1914

• Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie.

• the heir of the Austro-Hungarian empire

• The Serbian nationalist Gavrila Princip shot him!

• He shot him because Prince and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina!

Now! The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events. Austria-Hungary (like many countries around the world) blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as a “justification” for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

• Russia supported Serbia so Austria - Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders got assurance from the German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support them.
• Austro-Hungarian leaders started fearing that a Russian intervention meant involving Russia’s ally. At that time it was France and Great Britain, both very powerful countries at the time.
• ON July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm SECRETLY pledged that he would support Austria - Hungary, this gave Austria-Hungary a carte blanche meaning a blank check which is an assurance of Germany supporting in case of war! 
• Austria-Hungary was a dual monarchy that sent an ultimatum to Serbia with such harsh terms which made it almost impossible to accept!

World War 1 begins

• The Serbian government was convinced that Austria-Hungary was getting ready for war

• So the Serbian government ordered that the Serbian Army mobilize and appeal to Russia for assistance.

• JULY 28: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed quickly

In one week: Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany. World war 1 had officially begun.

The Western Front

• Schlieffen Plan:

• An aggressive military strategy which was named for its mastermind:

• German Field Marshal : Alfred Von Schlieffen 

• The plan was for Germany to begin fighting in WW1 on two fronts and then invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

August 4, 1914

• German troops crossed the border into Belgium.
• In the first battle of WW1, Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege 

• They used the most powerful weapons in their arsenal:

• HUGE SIEGE CANNONS 
• (they did this because they wanted to capture the city by August 15.)

• The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium towards France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance.

First battle of the Marne

September 6-9, 1914

• French and British forces confronted the invading German army 

• The german army had penetrated deep into northeastern France within 30 miles of Paris

• The allied troops checked the German advance and then mounted a successful counterattack which drove the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River

The defeat meant the end of the German’s plan for a quick victory in France. Both of the sides dug into trenches. 

• The Western Front was the setting of a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

A long and costly battle in this campaign was fought in Verdun : (February - December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July - November 1916) 

German and French troops suffered about a million casualties in the battle of verdun alone.

The Roads to World War 1: Crash course European History #32

NOTES :^[b]

• Alliance System:

• A formal agreement between two or more nations or powers to cooperate and come to one another's defense

• Arms Build-up 

• Increase in weapons production and innovation leading up to WWI. Notably, the naval arms race saw the production of dreadnoughts, very expensive battleships.

• Nationalism

• A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one’s country

• Imperialism

• A policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force

• Alfred Dreyfus (Dreyfus Affair)

• A Jewish captain in the French army
• Falsely accused and convicted of treason 
• This case split France apart: army, anti-Semites, and Catholics vs. civil libertarians and most of the more radical republicans. 
• This led to him being declared innocent as well as all ties between the state and the Catholic church. Nearly everything with the church changed.

• Espionage

• The act of spying, especially a government spy obtaining secrets of another government.

• Boers/Afrikaners

• Belonging to relating to white people of South Africa whose ancestors were Dutch

• Boer War

• Lasting from 1899 to 1902, Dutch colonists and the British competed for control of territory in South Africa.

• Boxer Rebellion

• 1899 rebellion in Beijing, China started by a secret society of Chinese who proposed the “foreign devils”
• The rebellion was ended by British troops.

• Otto von Bismarck

• Chancellor of Prussia from 1862 until 1871, when he became chancellor of Germany. A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870) and was responsible for the creation of the German Empire (714)

• William II

• This new German emperor opposed Bismarck, fired him, and ended up being less successful than Bismarck anyway

• Dual Alliance (1879)

• The alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary pledging mutual aid if Russia attacked one of them. The foundation of German foreign policy.

• Triple Alliance

• Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy alliance gave Austria-Hungary a powerful ally in its resistance to the developing expansionism of Russia. France, Britain, and Russia formed the Triple Entente in response. The resulting division of Europe into two armed camps led eventually to the outbreak of WWI.

• Reinsurance Treaty (1887-1890)

• Bismarck sought to remain on good terms with Russia despite the failure of the Three Emperors' League and the Russian perception that they had been treated harshly at the Congress of Berlin (1878); the last of the "Bismarckian system of alliances" as Bismarck was dismissed in 1890 by Kaiser Wilhelm II

How World War 1 Started: Crash Course World History 209

Notes:

1914 - What year did World War I start?

Austria -What country was the assassinated Franz Ferdinand from?

A peaceful relationship -John Green says all wars begin with a breakdown of what?

They become more extreme -John Green says what happens to moderates when another moderate is assassinated?

Because Franz was moderate and Mr. Uncle was not so moderate - Why didn't Franz Ferdinand’s uncle like him?

Serbia - The Black Hand was a group that wanted to build a greater what?

Germany - What country promised to help Austria if Russia attacked?

Austria - In the prelude to World War I, what country gave the Serbs an ultimatum?

July - What month did Austria declare war on Serbia?

Russia - France mobilized its force in support of what country?

Belgium - Germany crossed what country's borders to get to France?

Britain - What country issued an ultimatum to Germany, telling them to get their butt out of Belgium?

Most historians agree that this event that started World War I - The assassination of

Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28th, 1914

Looking at why war or any historical event happened means looking for a cause and effect relationship that

implicitly assumes that if one particular event in a chain of events had gone differently, the historical outcome would also be different.

Black Hand -the Serbian terrorist group that planned to assassinate Franz Ferdinand

WWI: A war fought from 1914 to 1918 between the Allies, notably Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, and the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.

• Franz Ferdinand's uncle didn't particularly like him, but as the emperor of Austria-Hungary, he felt a certain responsibility to, do something:

• Now it's a bit of a schoolyard bully kind of diplomacy, but it does make a certain sense, if Serbia can get bigger, then all of the other places will think that they can have nations too. 
• Soon enough, you don't have an empire. Almost a month after the assassination, on July 23, Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia. And Austria intentionally made the demands so harsh that the Serbs would inevitably have to reject them and ergo war.

Who started World War 1? 

Notes:

• In the 1960s the historian Fritz Fisher  identified Germany as the chief cause of the war
• Germany’s guilt for the war was also written into the VERSAILLES PEACE TREATY 

• In article 231.
• The idea that anger over that clause is incumbent debts helped lead to Hitler’s rise

• Kaiser Wilhelm 2:

• He was the emperor of Germany during World War 1.
• He made illiterate public statements which in turn made people believe that Germans were eager for war

• What is the “blank check” out the carte blache

• This was a blank check which meant that they would always support Austro-Hungarian’s ultimatum to Serbia. This also empowered Austria’s foreign minister Berchtold to behave as recklessly as possible.

• Germans were the first to declare war on:

• Russia on August 1, 1914

• Germans advance on France through Belgium is what brought Britain into the war
• What was the reason Russia was so aggressive in participating in the war because they felt in danger of becoming a laughing stock in European politics following?

• It was because they had had a humiliating defeat to Japan in the Russo-Japanese war. Following was Russia’s inability to stop Austria from annexing Bosnia from the Ottomans in 1908. This was the event that sparked Serbia’s drive to expand its own territory. Its history of prior weakness also meant that Russia’s foreign policymakers figured that without some decisive action. Russia would not be able to be taken seriously anymore.

• What was the decision to go to participate in the Great War? Or. Whose hands was it ultimately in?

• It was in the hands of a very small group of diplomats.
• Even in the most democratic countries (Britain and France) popular opinion did not force mobilization

Serbia

• Black Hand gang

• They were a  Serbian gang who assassinated Austro-Hungarian Archduke and the wife Sofie

• The archduke was also heir to the empire

• Serbia also refused an ultimatum (a final demand or statement of terms) from Austria-Hungary and would not let them enter Serbia to retrieve terrorists responsible for Franz-Ferdinant assassination
• Gavrillo Princp was Serbian terrorist who assassinated Franz-Ferdinand 

Austria-Hungary 

• Was the first country to declare war on Serbia
• Annexed Bosnia, this raised tensions in the Balkans with Serbia and Russia
• Germany’s “blank cheque” to Austria-Hungary encouraged Austria’s foreign minister Berchtold to behave recklessly 

• Under the mistaken impression to create the war 

• (The germans offered it so there wouldn’t be a war)

• Ultimatum to Serbia which led to war only against Serbia

Russia 

• The first country that was ready and mobilized for war
• Russia attempted to protect Serbia from Austria-Hungary after vowing to not back down again in 1908
• Shamed over the losses in the Crimean and Russia-Japanese wars created need to reestablish their honor and pride
• Russia’s mobilization drew Germany, France, and Britain into the war. 

• Maintain its influence in the Balkans for Russia’s own needs
• Wanted to be taken seriously because of their loss from the Russo-Japanese war

Germany 

• Marched through Belgium to attack France
• Grew their Navy which created fear… this is also called militarism
• They issued a blank check “carte blanche” to Austria Hungary which allowed them to give Serbia the ultimatum
• They were the first to declare war on Russia and their advance on France through Belgium dragged Britain into the war

Great Britain 

• Imperialism and global conquest created tension abroad
• Declared war on Germany after they marched through Belgium

Ottoman Empire

• If they stopped Austria from annexing Bosnia… none of this would have ever happened

Europe Prior to World War 1 Alliance and Enemies 

Prelude to WW1

Alliance and Enemies:

• Germany 

• Many had dreamed of a German Europe or a multinational german commonwealth

• The commonwealth COULD protect from Britain or the US
• Raw materials from France and Scandinavia 
• Own coal and steel production, colonies, North Africa or the Middle East where there was oil

• Triple Entente: FRANCE RUSSIA BRITAIN - 1907

• Russia had supported Serbia which led to conflict with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire

• Triple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy

• Germany was friendly with the Ottoman Empire however

• Russia was afraid if Germany would come in charge of the Dardanelles
• 90% of Russia’s wheat exports

• Enemies

• Germany also built a navy designed to challenge Britain (England’s navy was the most powerful)

Balkan Troubles

• In 1908 - The emperor FRANZ JOSED of AUSTRIA had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina 

• Anti-Austrian hate was spread throughout the Balkans especially in Serbia 

• Balkan nations have JUST won their freedom from the Ottoman empire

• Serbia:

• Minority groups have been oppressed by Austria - Balkan Violence

• Moroccan Crisis

• Italy had successfully taken Libya because everyone was focused on the Moroccan Crisis

• The Balkan League was formed because of:

• The first Balakan war drove the Ottomans out of the Balkans for the first time in 500 years.

• Second Balkan war:

• Bulgaria was unsatisfied and attacked Serbia and Greece

• Serbia:

• Austria-Hungary was ready to stop Slavic nationalism but Russia had just lost to Japan and wanted to prevent any loss of face for Russia 
• Between 1912 and 1918 one out of every six Serbs would die violently

The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 

Franz Ferdinand (1863)

• in 1889, his cousin suicided (Crown Prince Rudolf) which led Franz Ferdinand to rule the empire. 
• People did not like him because of his conservative beliefs. 
• His beliefs were “enlightened” as he called Serb’s pigs and hated the Hungarians
• He also thought the Slavs were less than human
• He was strongly Catholic and Anti-Jewish

Gavrilo Princp:

• A member of the Young Bosnians which was a violent secret society

Sunaric:

• Member of the Bosnian parliament who warned Ferdinand and his wife Sofia to cancel their trip to Sarajevo

The Black Hand shouldn’t have assassinated Ferdinand 

• Ferdinand had views against ANY war with Russia, and this was unlike the rest of his empire
• He also wanted the bi-partite state of Austria-Hungary to a tripartite state of Austria, Hungary, and the Slavic peoples

PREWAR EUROPE

• Strikes across Europe
• Intense divisions

• Ireland = brink for Civil War because of the British rule. People were both supporting and opposing British rule.
• Boers were rebelling against the British

• Assassinations were common.
• Violence against Jews and oppressed Ethnic groups 

• Story of Alfred Dreyfus who was a Jewish officer in the French army

• He was tried for espionage and convicted and imprisoned on Devil’s Island (evidence against him was fabricated)
• His situation led to anti-Semitism and even assaults took place

• Bismarck wanted peace in Europe and organized an alliance system

• Germany and Austria: Dual Alliance (1879)
• Germany, Austria, Italy: Triple Alliance (1882)
• Germany with Russia: Reinsurance Treaty 

He did all this to reduce the possibility of large wars but all changed when Kaiser Wilhelm came to power

GERMANY WANTED TO GAIN POWER AROUND THE WORLD, EXPANDING INTO TROPICAL COLONIES TO CREATE A GERMAN “Place in the sun”

CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS 

• https://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/balkans/ 
• mr jon’s presentation but i added extra details from the web as well :)

What are the Balkans?

• The Balkans were a cluster of nations in Eastern Europe between Australia-hungarian and Otttoman empires

• The balkans are important because continued instability and conflict in the balkans were a major cause of tension prior to WW1
• A serbian nationalist group was involved in the assasination of Franz Ferdinand which directly triggered the outbreak of war 
• The Balkans were not an economic jackpot because it had a few natural resources. If it had a value it would be geographical and geopolitical.
• It was so sparsely populated and underdeveloped.
• However, as Mr Jon says geography is destiny. and it was located at the crossroads of three major empires, ottoman, russian, and austro-hungarian 

• the access to several important waterways and empires made the balkan region strategically vital

For this very reason, the Balkans had been a gateway between east and west. it was an area of cultural and mercantile exchange and a melting pot of ethnicities and people.

the retracting ottoman empire

• the balkan peninsula was ruled by the powerful ottoman empire
• however by the 1800s the ottoman empire started retracting 

• this led to emergence of nationalist and independence movements in the Balkans

During this period:

• greece, serbia, montenegro, and bulgaria all gained independence from the ottoman rule

Western european powers had developed an interest for the Balkan region. They were driven by the concerns about what might happen once the Ottoman empire disintegrated. Foreign commentators also referred to this as the “eastern question” 

interest in the balkans 

• Each of the european powers had their own ambitions and objectives with regard to the balkans. 

• the russian hoped to expand its territory by moving into the region 

• the russia navy with its ports on the black sea coveted access and control of the bosphorus which provided SHIPPING ACCESS to the Mediterranean

• britain was opposed to russian expansion so it wanted the ottoman empire to remain intact. 

• the ottoman empire staying intact served as a buffer against the russians

• germany hoped to acquire bankrupt ottoman regions as vassal states or colonies

• Austro-hunagrian interests in the balkans

• they had annexed bosnia-herzegovina and wanted to maintain control

• this caused conflict with russia and Serbia as they wanted for influence over the region 

• Serbia's interests in the balkans

• Greater Serbia = all balkan slavs would be united under serbian rule
• increased in military -> ruled Karadjordjevic dynasty through a military coup
• became powerful - austria-hungary. became worried and created albania

The ottoman empire - 1914:

• Osman 1 founded the Ottoman empire

• Roman empire fell in the west, it continued as the Byzantine empire then well to the turks
• Turkey was first called Constantinople 

• The Ottoman tried to maintain their empire in Europe

Serbian Aspirations:

• Austria-Hungary

• The habsburg emperor, franz Joseph -> Habsburg Dynasty

• Russia

• wanted access to the mediterranean sea by establishing things in the Balkans

Alliances : countries act for the benefit of their country only

Southern Slavs - wanted full independence led by Serbia 

• Austria-Hungary:

• Wanted to prevent this 
• (it could break their empire since it was made of different ethnic groups)

• Dual monarchy in a weakened state

Bosnian Crisis of 1908

• Young Turks:

• Overthrew the government and began modernizing Bosnia

• Austria-hungary annexed Bosnia (Herzegovina)

• This upsetted Serbia and Russia

• War was quite near but Russia was not ready (Russo-Japan)

• Italy was part of the triple alliance but was also upset

The Balkan Wars (1912-1913)

• Balkan league:

• Expel the turks from the region

• The great powers of europe:

• Not prepared for a widee war

1913

• Bulgaria hadn’t received enough land and went to war against Serbia and Greece

• They were defeated badly.

• Serbia had become the dominant power in the Balkans

The assasination of Franz Ferdinand

• He had decided to visit Sarajevo which is the center or Bosnia

• The Habsburg Dynasty offered the US Austria-Hungary

  ---

The Balkan Crisis: Textbook

The First Balkan War:

• Balkan League: Serbia, Greece, Montenegro

Key Objective :

• Force Turkey from the Balkans by taking Macedonia and dividing amongst themselves
• Austria-Hungary couldn’t handle the stronger version of Serbia and called war

• Russia supported Serbia (the influence in the Balkans for their own benefit)

TREATY OF LONDON:

• The rapid success of the League maade the Great powers anxious and hence a settlement was negotiated in the Treaty Of London

• Turkish lands were divided between the Balkan states
• Balkan states were unhappy > friction between Balkan states

• The great powers stepped back (ex:Germany with Austria)

The Second Balkan War

• Serbia’s Growth 

• Strong nationalist feeling within Serbia
• Doubled in size form the two Balkan wars
• Proved itself militarily meaning its army of 200,000 men sufficed
• Diplomatic success for Russia encouraged russia to stand by its ally
• Austria-Hungary wanted to crush Serbia

Bosnian Crisis (Textbook)